BABEUF(Gracchus) and Sylvain MARÉCHAL. Le Manifeste des égau - Lot 108

BABEUF(Gracchus) and Sylvain MARÉCHAL. Le Manifeste des égaux. [In:] Copie des pièces saisies dans le local que Baboeuf [sic] occupoit lors de son arrestation. Paris, Imprimerie nationale, Frimaire, an V [1796]. - Suite de la Copie des pièces [...]. Paris, Imprimerie nationale, Nivôse, an V [1796]. 2 volumes in one in-8, bradel paper-covered boards, ochre title page on spine (Modern binding). First edition (Tourneux, n°4672.) The Manifeste des Égaux expresses the profound meaning of the Babouvist conjuration: overcoming the contradiction between the right to exist and the maintenance of private property and economic freedom. Claiming de facto equality and calling for the establishment of a society based on the community of goods and labor, the conspirators established communism - until then a utopian dream - as an ideological system and inscribed it in political history (En français dans le texte, n°197). François Noël Babeuf (1760-1797), who called himself Gracchus after the tribunes of republican Rome, took part in the Revolution as a journalist; a democrat, he opposed the Terror and Robespierre's authoritarianism, and organized a conspiracy to overthrow the Directoire in order to revive the revolution. Denounced by one of the conspirators, he and his companions were arrested, sentenced to death and guillotined on May 27, 1796. Largely written by Sylvain Maréchal, under Babeuf's direction, the Manifeste des égaux occupies pp. 159-163 of the first volume. A pleasant copy. Numerous pencil initials in the margins. One quire browned, a few freckles in volume II. Small angular restoration to folio O5 in volume II. Without the rare table at the end of Volume II (pp. 335-352).