Rare Book Monthly

Articles - June - 2018 Issue

Avec Privilège, or Death of A Pamphlet

This is both a very ordinary and extraordinary document! A four-page booklet printed on uncut paper in 1733. There are hundreds of those Arrêts de la Cour du Parlement—official publications emanating from the Parliament of Justice— in circulation, and they are almost worth nothing; this particular one cost 20 bucks. Some are sought-after though; those linked to some historical events or that regard the execution of a famous criminal such as Cartouche or Damiens. The one we’re talking here is about the execution not of a man but of a pamphlet—and boy, that was a serious business!

 

Our “Arrêt”, dated from March 30, 1733, “condemns a libel entitled Letter From Louis XIV to Louis XV, made of eighteen in-quarto pages, to be burnt and slashed by the Executioner of High Justice.” The first interesting detail lies at the top of the front page, and it is to be found inside the decorative cartouche: “Printed At Nantes, by Pierre Maréschal.” At the bottom of the last page, we also read: “On the copy printed in Paris by Pierre Simon, Printer for the Parliament, La Harpe Street, At L’Hercule’s, 1733.” These publications were spread all over the kingdom through a network of official printers: “Some copies of this “Arrêt”, reads the text, shall be sent to the (competent authorities) to be read, published, registered and exhibited if necessary.

 

They were then printed “with privilege”. A “privilege” was the official authorization required to print any work in France. In fact, printing was not originally welcome. In the 15th century, the theologians of La Sorbonne perceived it as a threat to Catholicism. Fearing that pagan doctrines might contaminate Europe through this devilish invention, they asked King François 1st to put a ban on it, which he did, in 1535! Of course, he had to step back after a short while, yet appointing a limited amount of printers as well as some “censors”, who were to read every printed book to make sure they wouldn’t hurt the Catholic faith—hence the famous “privilège” that went along every official book in France until 1789. But it didn’t prevent people from using this powerful weapon in every “war” fought afterwards, from the rise of Protestantism to the destabilization of Cardinal Mazarin—the innumerable pamphlets published against him during the 17th century even gave their name to a sort of literary trend, the “mazarinades”. We know of the secret ways used by writers to send their forbidden works to Holland, where fictitious printers like Pierre Marteau—first an alias of the Elzeviers—would print them, before smuggling them back to France. Pamphlets have always been terrible tools and the government took terrible measures to fight them down—as far as treating them as people.

 

Our “Arrêt” starts with a short and lively introduction: “ Today, the Kingsmen entered (the court room) and Master Pierre Gilbert, lawyer of the said Lord King, (...) declared: Sirs, deeply shocked, etc.” The protocol is quite strict but the judgement shows no impartiality whatsoever. The document calls the incriminated libel “an insolent and seditious letter”, accusing it of committing a “double attempt”; “it dares compromise two holy names in the darkest and most atrocious ways.” The King—Louis XV—, was directly under attack, so he would probably be aware of this decision of Justice. Therefore, the magistrates gave all they had: “Shall we say it? A daring feather attacks the King in person, thus hurting his subjects.” Yet, “since the happy day he was born, the King has been the centre of our affection, of our attention and care; he is so dear to his people, and so worthy to be; and yet some would like to make people reconsider the love they have for him, and the way he inspires them to sacrifice up their lives to him.

 

The pamphlet itself is here despised, but not “the attempt it represents against His Majesty, the dignity and greatness of his state, against the reputation and the glory of our nation,” or “the pernicious example it sets, and that deserves the cruellest punishment.” In this dreadful writing, Louis XIV awakes from the grave to address his successor Louis XV: “Small noises, Sir, do not wake the dead...” But the matter was apparently of importance; even Voltaire quotes this pamphlet in his History of the Parliament of Paris, calling it a “despicable satire.” It is a very obscure text written to “back some ultramontanist claims”, Voltaire says. Of course, it came out anonymously. The author, today identified as Robert de Steuil, criticizes the main Minister of Louis XV, Cardinal de Fleury; but the topic doesn’t really matter. Suffice to say it was an illegal publishing aiming at the King—what is interesting is to see how seriously the authorities would deal with such works. Called a “criminal and heinous work” by the magistrates, the pamphlet was therefore sentenced to “expiate its crime through the fire.” Our document warns all booksellers, printers and peddlers not to distribute this libel in any way—or they should then be considered as lese-majesty criminals! The following day—March 21—, the seized copies of the pamphlet were taken to “the bottom of the great stairs of the Palace” at the court’s opening. One copy was spared and left at the Tribunal Registry. The rest, “in accordance with this “Arrêt”, were “slashed and thrown into the fire.” This was carried out in the presence of several magistrates, including the famous Ysabeau, who signed the “Arrêt”.

 

The operating executioner of High Justice was the same Sanson, who hanged or broke people alive on the wheel when necessary. Thus died pamphlets at the time—almost like men. This almost insignificant sheet of paper is an obituary that reminds us that publishing “sans privilège” (without privilege) was no laughing matter.

 

 

Thibault Ehrengardt

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
    Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
    Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
    Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
    Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
    Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
    Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
  • Swann, May 15: Lot 4: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová, Z Mého Detství Drevoryty, Prague: Obzina, 1929. First trade edition, signed by the artist. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 10: Nancy Cunard, Negro Anthology, with a tipped-in A.L.S. to Karl Marx's niece, 1934. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 14: Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845. First edition. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 17: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, inscribed first edition, 1959. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 28: Margaret Hill Morris, Private Journal Kept during a Portion of the Revolutionary War, for the Amusement of a Sister, 1836. First edition. $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 38: Anna Sewell, Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse, 1877. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 43: Gertrude Stein, Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, signed presentation copy with photograph of Stein, 1912. First edition. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 48: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, first edition in the scarce dust jacket, 1927. $6,000 to $8,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 54: Katherine Dunham, large archive of material from her attorney, 1951-53. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 55: Margaret Fuller Signed Autograph Letter, New York City, 1846. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 92: Sonia Delaunay, illus. & Tristan Tzara, Juste Present, deluxe edition with original gouache, 1961. $20,000 to $25,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 93: Flor Garduño, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, 2006. Limited edition. $6,000 to $8,000.
  • Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000
    Ketterer, May 26: PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. First edition in first issue jacket. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000
  • Leland Little, May 21: Signed Artist Proof of the Monumental G.O.A.T.: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.
    Leland Little, May 21: Assorted Rare Publications Related to H.P. Lovecraft, Including The Recluse Signed by Vincent Starrett.
    Leland Little, May 21: Two Issues of The Vagrant, Including the First Appearance of H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" in Number Eleven.
    Leland Little, May 21: Rare First Printing of Anne of Green Gables, With ALS from the Author.
    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, In First Issue Jacket.
    Leland Little, May 21: The Limited Paumanok Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman.
    Leland Little, May 21: Beautifully Bound Limited Flaubert Edition of The Works of Guy de Maupassant.
    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Bonaparte's Celebrated American Ornithology, With Spectacular Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Rare Complete Set of Jardine's The Naturalist's Library, With Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: Invitation to the Lincoln-Johnson National Inaugural Ball, March 4th, 1865.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Scarce Inscribed First Edition of James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name.
    Leland Little, May 21: Picasso's Le Goût du Bonheur, Limited Edition.

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions