CLICQUOT DE BLERVACHE (Simon). Les Moyens les... Lot 24

[CLICQUOT DE BLERVACHE (Simon). Les Moyens les moins onéreux à l'État et aux peuples, de construire & d'entretenir les grands chemins. - Mémoire sur les moyens d'améliorer en France la condition des Laboureurs, des Journaliers, des Hommes de peine vivans dans les campagnes, & celle de leurs Femmes & de leurs Enfans. Paris, Delalain, 1789. Together 2 works in one volume, in-8, red morocco, triple gilt fillet, fleuron at corners, ornate smooth spine, lemon title page, interior roulette, gilt edges (Period binding). INED, n°1138. First edition of the memoir by the economist Clicquot de Blervache (1723-1796), Inspector General of Manufactures and Commerce, who denounced the backwardness of agriculture in France and the poverty of the peasants, attributable to feudal and ecclesiastical rights. The first work, concerning corvées and the maintenance of crossroads, an answer to a question posed by the Académie de Châlons-sur-Marne in 1777, is anonymous, but its author could be Lecreulx, an engineer posted in Lorraine since 1775 and a member of the Académie de Nancy (cf. Anne Conchon, La Corvée des grands chemins au XVIIIe siècle, p. 252, note 64). Copy in contemporary morocco.