DU BREUL (Jacques) Lot n° 32

The Theatre of the Antiquities of Paris. Where is treated the foundation of the Churches & Chapels of the City, University, City, & Diocese of Paris : as well as the institution of the Parliament, foundation of the University & Colleges, & other remarkable things. Paris, Pierre Chevalier, 1612. In-4 of (8) ff., 1310 pp. and (9) ff. in red morocco, decorated in the Du Seuil style, spine decorated with small gilt irons, interior roulette, edges gilt on marbling (period binding). First edition. Dedicated to François de Bourbon, prince of Conti, it was shared between Pierre Chevalier and Claude Guérin, known as La Tour, both merchant-librarians of the university of Paris. It is illustrated with eleven engravings in the text, finely engraved in intaglio by Thomas de Leu, Léonard Gaultier and Jean Dubrayet: five of them depict royal burials and three others are portraits of Christophe de Thou, President Bon Broé and Papire Masson, lawyer at the Parliament. This history of the city of Paris, "la belle nef d'une grand' Republique", was a milestone: it served as the basis for all works concerning the capital in the 17th century. Jacques du Breul (1528-1614), a Benedictine monk, was prior of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and took care of the conservation of the abbey's archives. It was in this work that Victor Hugo found part of his documentation for Notre-Dame de Paris. The most famous example is undoubtedly that of Claude Frollo, one of the central characters of the novel, whose name is borrowed from a lord of the fief of Tirechappes, mentioned by Du Breul on page 1082. (Edmond Huguet, Quelques sources de Notre-Dame de Paris in Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, 1901, pp. 48-79.) A superb copy, in contemporary morocco decorated in the Du Seuil style, of perfect elegance. From the library of Count Henri de La Bédoyère, with bookplate (1862, I, n° 2427). Slight brown spots. Black ink stain at the end of the volume. (Rahir, Bibliothèque de l'amateur, 406. - Barroux, Essai de bibliographie des généralités de l'histoire de Paris, n° 35. - Duportal, n° 256. - Le Roux de Lincy & Bruel, Notice historique et critique sur dom Jacques du Breul in Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, t. XXIX, 1868, pp. 56-72.)