CHOISY (François Timoléon, abbé de). Mémoires... Lot 42

CHOISY (François Timoléon, abbé de). Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de Loüis XIV. Utrecht, Van-de-Water, 1727. 2 vol. in-12, brown calf, ornate ribbed spines, tan calf title-pages (period binding). Minor worm damage to one headband. Posthumous first edition published by Abbé d'Olivet on the Choisy manuscript. "Brought up 'like a living doll', the abbé de Choisy retained a taste for female costume and 'was much better known as Mme de Sancy or comtesse des Barres than as an abbé'. It was, however, the abbé who was employed in Rome by Cardinal de Bouilion (1676), then appointed ambassador to Siam (1684). Choisy, who was also the author of libertine novels, left these Memoirs, which constitute an irreplaceable direct, lively and witty testimony, written in the exquisite language of good company conversation of his time, in which he excelled. Others have better recounted the actions of the considerable figures who lived at the beginning of Louis XIV's reign; none have portrayed them as Choisy did. It's a little story that helps the big one, and often completes it." (Bourgeois and André, 'Sources de l'Histoire de France', no. 832). While he made a name for himself as a historian (Mémoires pour servir l'histoire de Louis XIV) and theologian, his delightful memoirs as a worldly ecclesiastic bear witness to his various escapades, and his taste for female transvestism. Following a serious illness, in 1683 he decided to make amends and left for Siam with the French embassy, where he was ordained a priest. In 1687, he was admitted to the Académie française, where he worked with Charles Perrault on the Opuscules sur la langue française. Engraved bookplate of Abbé de Pierrefeu. A very good copy.