1788 — pp. xii, 403. 8vo. 205 mm. Original full leather binding. Spine quite worn and should be replaced or restored. Old bookplate of the Connecticut Historical Society (Released for Sale). Full Title: Considerations sur L'Ordre de Cincinnatus, ou Imitation D'un pamphlet Anglo-Americain. Suivies De plusieurs Pieces relatives a cette Institution; D'une Lettre signee du General Washington, accompagnee de Remarques par l'Auteur Francois; D'une Lettre de feu M. Turgot, Ministre d'Etat en France, au Docteur Price, sur les Legislations Americaines; & de la Traduction d'un Pamphlet du Docteur Price, intitule: Observations on the importance of the American Revolution, and the means of making it a benefit to the world; accompagnee de Reflexions & de Notes du Traducteur. Howes M 653. This is an enlarged edition of a work first published in 1784. It is based on a pamphlet entitled "Considerations on the Society or Order of Cincinnatus" issued in 1783 at Philadelphia. The original pamphlet was signed "Cassius" and is supposed to have been written by Edanus Burke (though some give Sebastien Roch Nicholas Chamfort as a joint author). The notes on Price's very important 'Observations' were largely the work of Guy Jean Baptiste Target (1733-1806). The hereditary and quasi-aristocratic character of the Revolutionary War veterans' Society of the Cincinnati was strongly opposed by Franklin and others. Franklin was unable, due to his sensitive political and diplomatic roles, to attack the organization directly. Apparently "he engaged two of his friends, Chamfort and the young Mirabeau, to translate an American attack upon the Society, Aedanus Burke's Considerations on the Society or Order of Cincinnatus, and to incorporate into the translation an essay in letter form that Franklin had himself written to his daughter, which demonstrated mathematically the absurdity and moral and social evil of aristocracy or "descending honor." Mirabeau's book, Considerations sur l'Ordre de Cincinnatus, published in London in 1784 through the efforts of Franklin and later translated into English, created a great furor, for it attacked an organization headed by such respectable figures as Washington, Lafayette, and Rochambeau, and at the same time struck, convincingly and cleverly, at the foundations of the existing French social order." - Echeverria, Mirage in the West, pp. 56-57). This enlarged edition includes a French translation of Price's book and Mirabeau's comments on it. It includes details which did not appear in the English version, and is an important document in the history of the Revolutionary War era. RARE. **PRICE JUST REDUCED FR-VOYAGES
