SIEYÈS, Emmanuel-Joseph. Préliminaire de la Constitution françoise: reconnoissance et exposition raisonnée des droits de l'homme & du citoyen. Published in Paris by Imprimerie de Ph.-D. Pierres in 1789. In-12 paperback in blue dust jacket with black handwritten title, red cloth folder, cardboard slipcase. 3 ff., 21 pages. Cover slightly worn. Some foxing and spotting, not serious. Period annotations in ink on title page. Rare Versailles first edition, published in July 1789 by the King's printer, Philippe-Denis Pierres. A short preface dated July 22, 1789, in which Sieyès explains the conditions under which his draft constitution was written and communicated, is printed on an uncoded first leaf, and is supplemented by "Observations" on the verso of the same leaf. The author then presents an "exposé des motifs" of political philosophy, followed by 32 articles that prelude the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted a month later. A fine copy of this remarkable statement of the principles that inspired the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.