Mirabeau

1901 · ref. B4152 — New York & Ohio : St. Dunstan Society c. 1901. A fine and handsome set. Top edges gilt front and bottom edges uncut. . Binding: Rebacked tastefully to match the orginial boards tooled gilt rules and elaborate design on front covers blind tooled elaborate design on back matching pasted and free end papers. Notes: Honoré Gabriel Riqueti comte de Mirabeau 9 March 1749 – 2 April 1791 was a French revolutionary as well as a writer diplomat freemason journalist and French politician at the same time. He was a popular orator and statesman. During the French Revolution he was a moderate favoring a constitutional monarchy built on the model of Great Britain. He unsuccessfully conducted secret negotiations with the French monarchy in an effort to reconcile it with the Revolution. In the years leading up to the Revolution he communicated with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson—who served successively as United States Ministers to France in that period—and used materials provided directly by each of them in several of his pre-Revolution publications. After a preliminary trip to Berlin in early 1786 he was dispatched that July on a mission to the royal court of Prussia; returning in January Mirabeau published a full account in his Secret History of the Court of Berlin 1787.10 This account denounced the Prussian court as scandalous and corrupt described the King of Prussia as weak and overly emotional and labeled Prince Henry of Prussia brother of Frederick the Great and a guest of the French court as narrow-minded and incompetent. The resulting uproar was an extreme embarrassment for the French government which quickly censored the book but could not prevent its widespread notoriety. Mirabeau's episode provided inspiration to many more radical publishers who came to regard Mirabeau as a leader of the coming revolution.11 Size: 4to: 160mm x 230mm Illustration: Illustrated with a color frontispiece. Category: Book Europe Germany;Book History St. Dunstan Society hardcover