MÉNAGE Gilles Les Origines de la langue françoise.

Brunet, III, 1615 ; Tchemerzine-Scheler, IV, 667 (“il existe des exemplaires en grand papier”).

First edition of the first major etymological dictionary of the French language.

Writer, pamphleteer and grammarian Gilles Ménage was born in Angers in 1613 into a family of lawyers. He studied law against his will because his vocation was literature. Fortunately, the comfortable income from an ecclesiastical benefice enabled him to devote himself to belles-lettres, so he gave up the law. He soon demonstrated a perfect knowledge of the French language and shone in society, where he liked to quote Greek, Latin and Italian verses. He entered the entourage of Jean-François de Gondi, the future Cardinal de Retz, who took him under his protection. At that time is was very fashionable to write pamphlets and libels. Endowed with a contentious temperament, Ménage was soon known to fall out with half the personalities of his time, even falling out with his protector and leaving Cardinal de Retz’s household in a brawl.

He was a biting critic and a veritable censor of literary language. He polemicized with Vaugelas, antagonized Boileau, and in 1672 Molière ridiculed him with the character of ‘Vadius’, the smug poseur in Les Femmes Savantes. But Ménage applauded the play because his vanity in no way detracted from his intelligence. Until his death, Ménage maintained a salon, welcoming into his home the finest writers of his time, and his influence helped to advance the French language.

Les Origines de la langue françoise remain his real claim to fame. In it, Ménage shows himself to be one of the promoters of comparative philology, and this book, rich in various states of Latin, very old words, provincial terms and various Romance languages, is an attempt to promote the etymology of the French language and can be considered to be the first major French dictionary on the subject.

The work is dedicated by Ménage to his friend Pierre Dupuy

Pierre Dupuy and his younger brother Jacques were close to the great bibliophile Jacques-Auguste de Thou, who was their mother’s first cousin. After Thou’s death, Pierre became administrator of the famous library and moved in with Jacques at the Hôtel du Président. They moved-in their own books there and ran what came to be known as the Académie des frères Dupuy or Cabinet des frères Dupuy, which became a Parisian institution known throughout learned Europe and where Peiresc, Gassendi, Mersenne, Boulliau, Campanella, La Mothe Le Vayer, Guez de Balzac, Gilles Ménage, Gabriel Naudé and Grotius could be found… In his laudatory dedication, Ménage expresses his gratitude to his friend:  « … Depuis vingt ans que vous m’honoréz de votre amitié… Vous m’avez communiqué les livres de votre bibliothèque, qui est une des plus curieuses de toute l’Europe. Vous m’avez ouvert votre Cabinet, qui est un trésor de notre Histoire. C’est par votre moyen que j’ai connu tant d’excellents hommes qui s’assemblent tous les jours chez vous pour jouir de votre conversation et de celle de Monsieur votre frère…[For the twenty years that you have honoured me with your friendship… You have shared with me the books in your library, which is one of the most curious in the whole of Europe. You have opened to me your Cabinet, which is a treasure trove of our History. It is through you that I have come to know so many excellent men who gather every day at your home to enjoy your conversation and that of your brother…].

In 1645, Pierre and his brother, who had become guardians of the king’s library, left the Hôtel de Thou and moved to rue de la Harpe, in a house where the king’s books were stored. They moved their personal library there and continued to run their ‘cabinet’ successfully. Having decided to bequeath their collection of over 9,000 printed volumes to the Bibliothèque du Roi, it was Jacques, the surviving brother, who carried out the brothers’ wish.

 « Le legs de Jacques Dupuy permit un accroissement sans précédent du fonds des livres imprimés de la Bibliothèque du Roi : le catalogue que les frères Dupuy en avaient établi en prenant leurs fonctions de gardes en 1645 en recensait moins de 1500, tandis que douze ans plus tard l’arrivée de leur propre bibliothèque en apportait tout à coup plus de 9000. Une telle multiplication permettait enfin à la Bibliothèque royale d’accéder au nombre des grandes bibliothèques européennes de livres imprimés et de compter parmi celles qui s’illustraient, entre autres choses, par la modernité de leur fonds : car les frères Dupuy ont toujours porté une attention particulière au mouvement scientifique et philosophique de leur temps ainsi qu’aux questions politiques, et leur bibliothèque reflète à cet égard, tant par l’achat de livres nouveaux que par la constitution de recueils sur les affaires du temps, les intérêts et curiosités qu’atteste par ailleurs leur très abondante correspondance. » (Jean Marc Chatelain).

A magnificent copy, printed on large paper, ruled and remarkably bound in contemporary red morocco

It comes from the library of the renowned Swiss bibliophile François-Pierre-Louis d’Estavayer (1681-1736) and bears two engraved bookplates. Seigneur de Mollondin, member of the Grand Council of Solothurn, Knight of St Louis François-Pierre d’Estavayer, known as the ‘Chevallier de Mollondin’, distinguished himself in various campaigns at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. He died unmarried in Solothurn on 28 January 1736. His extensive library was dispersed in 1872 (Eric-André Klauser. Jacques d’ Estavayer-Mollondin in: Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (DHS). Vevey; (Hubert de). Les ex-libris Fribourgeois, n°47).