Brunet, III, 1615 ; Tchemerzine-Scheler, IV, 667 (“il existe des exemplaires en grand papier”).<\/i><\/p>\n
First edition of the first major etymological dictionary of the French language.<\/span><\/p>\n Writer, pamphleteer and grammarian Gilles M\u00e9nage 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-Fran\u00e7ois 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, M\u00e9nage 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.<\/p>\n He was a biting critic and a veritable censor of literary language. He polemicized with Vaugelas, antagonized Boileau, and in 1672 Moli\u00e8re ridiculed him with the character of \u2018Vadius\u2019, the smug poseur in Les Femmes Savantes<\/i>. But M\u00e9nage applauded the play because his vanity in no way detracted from his intelligence. Until his death, M\u00e9nage maintained a salon, welcoming into his home the finest writers of his time, and his influence helped to advance the French language.<\/p>\n Les Origines de la langue fran\u00e7oise<\/i> remain his real claim to fame. In it, M\u00e9nage 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.<\/p>\n The work is dedicated by M\u00e9nage to his friend Pierre Dupuy<\/p>\n 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 H\u00f4tel du Pr\u00e9sident. They moved-in their own books there and ran what came to be known as the Acad\u00e9mie des fr\u00e8res Dupuy<\/i> or Cabinet des fr\u00e8res Dupuy<\/i>, which became a Parisian institution known throughout learned Europe and where Peiresc, Gassendi, Mersenne, Boulliau, Campanella, La Mothe Le Vayer, Guez de Balzac, Gilles M\u00e9nage, Gabriel Naud\u00e9 and Grotius could be found… In his laudatory dedication, M\u00e9nage expresses his gratitude to his friend: \u00ab \u2026 Depuis vingt ans que vous m\u2019honor\u00e9z de votre amiti\u00e9\u2026 Vous m\u2019avez communiqu\u00e9 les livres de votre biblioth\u00e8que, qui est une des plus curieuses de toute l\u2019Europe. Vous m\u2019avez ouvert votre Cabinet, qui est un tr\u00e9sor de notre Histoire. C\u2019est par votre moyen que j\u2019ai connu tant d\u2019excellents hommes qui s\u2019assemblent tous les jours chez vous pour jouir de votre conversation et de celle de Monsieur votre fr\u00e8re\u2026[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…].<\/p>\n In 1645, Pierre and his brother, who had become guardians of the king’s library, left the H\u00f4tel 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 \u2018cabinet\u2019 successfully. Having decided to bequeath their collection of over 9,000 printed volumes to the Biblioth\u00e8que du Roi, it was Jacques, the surviving brother, who carried out the brothers’ wish.<\/p>\n \u00ab Le legs de Jacques Dupuy permit un accroissement sans pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent du fonds des livres imprim\u00e9s de la Biblioth\u00e8que du Roi : le catalogue que les fr\u00e8res Dupuy en avaient \u00e9tabli en prenant leurs fonctions de gardes en 1645 en recensait moins de 1500, tandis que douze ans plus tard l\u2019arriv\u00e9e de leur propre biblioth\u00e8que en apportait tout \u00e0 coup plus de 9000. Une telle multiplication permettait enfin \u00e0 la Biblioth\u00e8que royale d\u2019acc\u00e9der au nombre des grandes biblioth\u00e8ques europ\u00e9ennes de livres imprim\u00e9s et de compter parmi celles qui s\u2019illustraient, entre autres choses, par la modernit\u00e9 de leur fonds : car les fr\u00e8res Dupuy ont toujours port\u00e9 une attention particuli\u00e8re au mouvement scientifique et philosophique de leur temps ainsi qu\u2019aux questions politiques, et leur biblioth\u00e8que refl\u00e8te \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard, tant par l\u2019achat de livres nouveaux que par la constitution de recueils sur les affaires du temps, les int\u00e9r\u00eats et curiosit\u00e9s qu\u2019atteste par ailleurs leur tr\u00e8s abondante correspondance. \u00bb (Jean Marc Chatelain).<\/p>\n A magnificent copy, printed on large paper, ruled and remarkably bound in contemporary red morocco<\/p>\n It comes from the library of the renowned Swiss bibliophile Fran\u00e7ois-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 Fran\u00e7ois-Pierre d’Estavayer, known as the \u2018Chevallier de Mollondin\u2019, 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-Andr\u00e9 Klauser. Jacques d’ Estavayer-Mollondin in: Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (DHS). Vevey; (Hubert de). Les ex-libris Fribourgeois, n\u00b047).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 4to (245 x 182 mm) 8 nn.ll., XXXVIII pp., 1 nn.l. (with a citation from Quintilianus on the verso), 845pp., 14 nn.ll. (tables in Latin, Italien, and Spanish, privilege and errata). Contemporary red morocco by Augustin Duseuil, panelled covers in the eponymous style, spine richly gilt with raised bands, gilt turn-ins, marbled and gilt edges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":86982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[544],"product_tag":[1244,1450,1518],"class_list":{"0":"post-86989","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-literature","7":"product_tag-17th-century-literature","8":"product_tag-first-edition","9":"product_tag-large-paper","10":"pa_auteur-menage-gilles-2","11":"pa_type-de-livre-printed-book","13":"first","14":"instock","15":"shipping-taxable","16":"purchasable","17":"product-type-simple"},"acf":{"artist":" Gilles M\u00c9NAGE","chapeau":"Magnificent large paper copy bound by Augustin Duseuil","adresse_bibliographique":"Paris, Augustin Courb\u00e9, 1650","book_type":"Printed book","provenance":"","afficher_prix":""},"yoast_head":"\n