EXCEEDINGLY RARE VOLUME FROM THE LIBRARY OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, WITH HER GILT ARMORIAL COAT OF ARMS ON BOTH BOARDS,FIRST EDITION OF MOTIFS DE MA FOI EN JÉSUS-CHRIST, 1776

(MARIE ANTOINETTE) (MUYARD DE VOUGLANS, Pierre-François). Motifs de ma Foi en Jésus-Christ [Reasons for My Faith in Jesus Christ]. Par un Magistrat. Paris: Hérissant / freres Estienne / Charles-Pierre Berton, 1776. 12mo (4 by 6-3/4 inches), contemporary full red morocco, gilt coat of arms of Marie Antoinette to both boards, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, black morocco spine label, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.

First edition of 18th-century French criminologist Vouglans’ major work on state and religious authority, a most rare and exceptional copy from the library of Marie Antoinette, with her gilt-embossed armorial coat of arms on both boards.

This important 18th-century work on the intersection of sacred and secular law—from the library of Marie Antoinette, with her gilt armorial coat of arms—is by prominent French criminologist and jurist Pierre-François Muyard de Vouglans (alt Muyart de Vauglaus). A contemporary of Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV, Vouglans has been described as “the judicial ‘Hercules’ of the Monarchy (Dworkin), a radical conservative, in favor of the absolutism and Catholicism as the state religion” (Simonin, Lecture: Stanford Humanities Center). Powerful and highly respected in influential circles, he was nevertheless ridiculed by Voltaire for opposing the work of Beccaria, whose “novel ideas about torture, capital punishment and equality before the law were condemned as highly dangerous…. by Muyard de Vouglans” (McShane, Criminological Theory, 25). With half title; woodcut-engraved vignette to title page, woodcut-engraved headpiece. Barbier III:367. Migne, Encylopédie Theologique, 946. OCLC lists four copies. Gilt-embossed armorial coat of arms of Marie Antoinette on both boards (Olivier 2508, fer 4). Marie-Antoinette formed two libraries, the main collection at the Tuileries and a second at the Petit Trianon: the latter identified by a gilt-stamped cipher with the initials ‘C[hateau] T[rianon]’ surmounted by a crown (Olivier 2508, fer 15) at the spine end, sometimes also on the upper board. The absence of this fer from the present volume indicates it is from the library at the Tuileries. Most of the books in this library are “said by Brunet to have been bound by a binder named Blaizot. They are usually covered with red morocco” (Fletcher, 74). After the Revolution, most of the books in the Tuileries collection was placed at the Bibliotheque Nationale. Bookplate of Henry Blackmer, likely that of the notorious American multi-millionaire who spent much of his life exiled in France following his association with the Teapot Dome scandal. Minor penciled marginalia to early blank.

Interior fresh and clean, tiny bit of repair at corners, minimal wear to joints, spine ends. An exceptional near-fine copy with a most important provenance.