- MANUSCRIT - Piedmont. Negotiation of Monsieur... Lot 6

- MANUSCRIT] - Piedmont. Negotiation of Monsieur le Maréchal de Brissac sent by King Henry II to Piedmont in the years 1550. 1551. 1552. 1553. 54 and 55. With memoirs, instructions, dispatches &c. S.l., s.d., (c. 1850), large vol. in-folio, 311 ff. covered with a fine, neat and very legible handwriting (about 30 lines per page), with deliberately archaizing spelling, but not exactly reproducing the spelling of the originals, large margins, stiff vellum, spine with mute nerves, red edges. Binding of the period. (boards and spine a little soiled, probably intentionally). The only known collection of letters of the marshal de Brissac. According to a habit that one has the right to qualify as execrable, the 19th century copyist who reproduced this important military and diplomatic correspondence does not indicate at any time what his source is, nor what is the fund (or funds) from which he drew to constitute his collection. Given that Brissac's correspondence is scattered between the Carpentras Library and various manuscripts kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale, and that there must be collections in private hands, precision would not have been superfluous... Apart from the pieces found in the Memoirs of his butler Boyvin de Villars (1607 or 1612), very partial editions of this correspondence were given in the 19th century by F. Molard (Correspondance inédite du Maréchal de Brissac, in Bulletin de la commission historique, 1893), then by Ch. Marchand, author of a biography of Brissac published in 1889 (Notes et extraits d'un manuscrit des Archives d'Etat à Turin, 1901, in-8 de 39 pp.). But nothing equivalent to the abundance of letters and documents copied here. In any case, the whole is quite coherent and relates to the main mission of Charles I de Cossé, marshal of Brissac (circa 1506 - 1564): appointed on 9 July 1550 as lieutenant-general in Piedmont, then appointed marshal of France (21 August of the same year), he was to replace the prince of Melfi in this province provisionally administered by France since his duke had placed himself in the service of Charles V, and which formed a kind of vanguard against the Emperor's ventures against the Kingdom. He remained there until after the Trêve de Vaucelles (5 February 1556), but his role in Piedmont only ended after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1558), which restored his states to Duke Emmanuel-Philibert, when he had to dismiss and pay his troops amidst the hostility of the Piedmontese, who refused to pay the contributions still due. However, the period 1556-1558 is completely outside our collection, which begins with the communication to the Prince of Melfi of his replacement by Brissac (letter from Henry II, 10 July 1550), concerns essentially the years 1550 and 1551, and ends in fact with the great Mémoire rendant raison de la guerre faicte en Piedmont en l'année 1553 (ff. 278-287). The documents that follow the latter are spread out from 1554 to 1561, but are scattered and sometimes of a private nature. The ensemble forms an exceptional document on our presence in Piedmont in the 16th century, not only at the diplomatic and military levels (abundant correspondence with the King, the Constable of France, his officers, and some foreign princes), but also with regard to daily administration: one can read with interest Les Politiques ordonnances qui s'observoient en Piedmont y gouvernant Monsieur le Prince de Melphe & que Monsieur de Brissac son successeur audict gouvernement faisoit observer tout le temps qu'il y esté (end of the volume) SHF, Hauser, 1254 and 1273.