BUSSY-RABUTIN (Roger de). Manuscript written... Lot 11

[BUSSY-RABUTIN (Roger de)]. Manuscript written in French but with the letters of the Greek alphabet, entitled "Λεσ Αμουρσ δυ Παλαισ Ρουαλ" [i.e.: Les Amours du Palais-Royal]. Last quarter of the 17th century. In-16, (6)-122 ff, fawn morocco, muted ribbed spine with partitions and fleurons, triple gilt fillet framing the boards with gilt figure "MP" in the center, ornate edges, gilt edges; corners worn (period binding). A FRENCH MANUSCRITE CRYPTED IN GREEK LETTERS, of which only the preface is truly in the Greek language. A PAMPHLET ON THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND MME DE LA VALLIÈRE, WRITTEN TO HARM BUSSY-RABUTIN. The latter had composed a Histoire amoureuse des Gaules on the Court of Louis XIV, of which manuscript copies began to circulate from 1663 - an edition was printed in 1665, probably in Liège, which earned Roger de Bussy-Rabutin an embaslization. Several texts were then launched, presented as sequels to Bussy-Rabutin's Histoire amoureuse des Gaules, among which the first and most famous, Histoire du Palais-Royal, published in Holland in 1667, is probably the invention of Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras. It was probably an edition made at the instigation of the Prince of Condé who must not have appreciated the portrait that his former lieutenant had painted of him in the Histoire amoureuse des Gaules, and wished to harm him by attributing to him a satire against the king and his favorite. The text would be integrated in 1688 in the collection La France galante. The volume ends here with an added poem whose beginning delivers in acrostic the name of René Moron de La Blanchetière, which it is tempting to compare with the gilded figure on the plates whose Greek reading would correspond to the initials of René Moron or Moron de La Rochetière. A René Moron de La Rochetière did exist, ordinary bailiff of Monsieur, the king's brother, who was condemned for alchemical practices and counterfeiting, imprisoned by lettre de cachet in April 1689, then transferred in 1691 to the citadel of Besançon. Provenance: trace of ex-libris engraved on old copperplate on one of the upper endpapers; library of Counts Henry and François Chandon de Briailles (ex-libris vignettes on verso of the first upper endpaper.