RIVAROL (Antoine, comte de). Discours préliminaire du Nouvea - Lot 140

RIVAROL (Antoine, comte de). Discours préliminaire du Nouveau dictionnaire de la langue française. - On the universality of the French language. Subject proposed by the Berlin Academy in 1783. Paris, Cocheris, An cinquième de la République [1797]. 2 works in one volume, in-4, red half-maroquin, spine decorated with flowered caissons, gilt numeral on tail, gilt head (Binding from the second half of the 19th century). Antoine de Rivarol (1753-1801), one of the most brilliant minds of his time and a leading figure in the counter-revolution, was awarded the Berlin Prize in 1783 for his essay on the Universality of the French language, composed "entirely to the glory of France and the French language" (En français dans le texte, no. 177) and printed the following year. The Discours préliminaire au nouveau Dictionnaire de la langue française is here dated to the original, published in Hamburg by Fauche; it was banned from sale in France because it contained fierce criticism of the revolutionary period: What is this mysterious, immense chariot, whose innumerable wheels go in all directions, laden with scaffolds, severed heads and broken scepters? It's the chariot of revolution... And those hideous, ragged people, with their haggard eyes and bloody arms, crowding around the chariot? These are the people of the revolution (pp. 232-233). An interesting copy that belonged to Hippolyte Cocheris (1829-1882), curator at the Mazarine and descendant of the printer and publisher Cocheris; bound in his cipher and bearing his engraved bookplate, the copy is enriched with 4 documents, mounted at the head on tabs: - an autograph bill signed by Rivarol to Cocheris: Je n'ai encore rien terminé avec les libraires, & je suis persécuté de la bonne manière, je n'ai de repos ni le jour ni la nuit... - a copy of n°1829 of the periodical Le Républicain français (January 8, 1798) in which we read: Le citoyen Cocheris, libraire, cloître Saint-Benoît, a été arrêté il y a quelques jours. He is accused of having received from his correspondents Rivarol's work entitled: Discours sur les langues en général [...]. Rivarol has interspersed some pages that are probably very violent against the French Revolution. The arrest of Cocheris was the result... - a copy of n°930 of the periodical La Sentinelle (21 nivôse an VI), in which we learn that the bookseller Cocheris is under arrest, for having published a speech by Rivarol, on languages, in which this émigré indulges in all his bitterness against the French revolution... - a copy of n°980 of the periodical La Sentinelle (13 ventôse an VI), giving the outcome of this affair: The bookseller Cocheris [...] has just been acquitted and set free [...] he spent two months in prison; during his detention, his wife died of worry, and without the help of his friends, his large family would have died of misery. Verse work deleting a few words and repairs to both issues of La Sentinelle. Missing lower corner of last four leaves.