AVAUX (Claude de Mesmes d'). Manuscript entitled... Lot 4

[AVAUX (Claude de Mesmes d'). Manuscript entitled "Extracts of the letters, acts, and memoirs sent or received by monsieur le comte d'Avaux, plenipotentiary ambassador of France to the conferences for the peace of Westphalia". [early 18th century]. large folio volume, 612 pp, stiff vellum, smooth spine with handwritten title on spine, edges speckled with red; binding a little stained, stained wetness in margin of half of leaves (period binding). AN IMPORTANT SOURCE ON MAZARIN'S DIPLOMACY, AND ON THE MOST IMPORTANT MISSION ACCOMPLISHED BY CLAUDE DE MESMES D'AVAUX (1595-1650). The count d'Avaux, who had begun his diplomatic career in 1627, was sent in September 1643 to The Hague, together with Abel Servien and the duke of Longueville, to negotiate general peace while all of Europe was engaged in the Thirty Years War. Nearly five years of negotiations led to the so-called Westphalia treaties in 1648. However, the diplomatic work was completed by Abel Servien alone, because the bitter rivalry that opposed him to the Count of Avaux ended up poisoning France's relations with foreign powers and undermining Mazarin's own position - furious, moreover, that the diplomatic dispatches could have been copied and circulated. The Duke of Longueville was recalled in February 1648, the Count of Avaux in March 1648, disgraced and exiled to his lands. The present collection, which covers the whole of the Comte d'Avaux's mission (1643-1648), has been collated from documents preserved in the library of his nephew Jean-Jacques de Mesmes (1640-88) and in the cabinet of Colbert, who must have received them from Mazarin. These letters are presented in the form of a summary of their arrangement, for example: "The 25th of February 1647. Memorandum from Monsieur d'Avaux. He sends a more correct copy of the treaty of the Swedes. Proposal of M. de Traum for the Landgrave: difficulties between the Catholics and the Protestants, and on the Palatine affair. He stays again some time in Osnabrug. Numerous partial publications of the diplomatic correspondence of the Count of Avaux appeared from the 17th century: Letters of Messrs. d'Avaux and Servien (1650), Memoirs of Mr. D. concerning the negotiations of the Treaty of Peace made at Munster in the year 1648, (1674), Memoirs and secret negotiations of the court of France concerning the peace of Munster (1710).