Lot n° 68
Estimation :
3000 - 4000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 52 500EUR
CHAMPLAIN (Samuel de). - Lot 68
CHAMPLAIN (Samuel de).
Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada, faits par le Sr de Champlain... Où se voit comme ce pays a été premierement descouvert par les François, sous l'authorité de nos Roys tres-Chrestiens, iusques au regne de sa Majesté à présent regnante Louis XIII.
Paris : Claude Collet, 1632. - 5 parts in one volume in-4, 224 x 167 : 16, 308, 310 pp. (1 blank f.), 20, 54, 8 pp. Hard parchment, smooth spine (contemporary binding).
First collective edition, partly original, the last one published during the author's lifetime, dedicated to the cardinal of Richelieu. It was shared between Claude Collet, Louis Sevestre and Pierre Le Mur.
Samuel de Champlain (1567?-1635) is one of the most famous French cartographers and geographers; founder of the city of Quebec in 1608 he is nicknamed "The father of New France". He crossed the Atlantic more than 20 times, which allowed him to publish reports of great interest.
In this edition, he offers a historical retrospective of the voyages to America since 1504, relates his own travels from 1603 to 1629 and gives the relation of what happened in 1631. According to Mathieu D'Avignon: "His writings are not only simple travel accounts: they have a historical significance, they serve the interests of the French Crown, of his immediate superiors, and sometimes even of the companies holding the monopoly of the Canadian trade which succeeded one another at the time and with which he had to collaborate. They contain transcriptions of official documents: correspondence, letters patent, commissions, inventories. They are official writings that truly constitute "founding narratives" (Mathieu D'Avignon, in: Champlain. Récits de voyages en Nouvelle-France, 1603-1632, 2018, p. 7).
The relations occupy in the present edition two large parts, the first being preceded by the epistle to Richelieu and a poem Sur le livre des voyages de Champlain Capitaine pour le Roy en la Marine by the Bordeaux lawyer and bibliophile Pierre Trichet Du Fresne (1586?-1644). There are 6 intaglio engravings, 4 in the text and 2 full-page, showing notably the attack of an Iroquois village, a deer hunt, a ritual, etc.
Following are 3 other texts, namely:
- Doctrine chrestienne, du R. P. Ledesme de la compagnie de Jésus. Translated into Canadian language, other than that of the Montagnars, for the conversation of the inhabitants of the said country (10 pp.) by the Jesuit missionary Saint Jean de Brébeuf (1593-1649). Includes in a second part The Sunday Prayer, translated into the language of the Montagnars of Canade by the Jesuit missionary Ennemond Massé (1574-1646).
- Traitté de la marine et du devoir d'un bon marinier (54 pp.) by Samuel Champlain. First edition of this interesting treatise rich in the experience of the geographer. It includes two woodcuts in the text, one of which represents an example of a navigation chart.
- Table to cognize the remarkable places on this map (8 pp.).
Nice copy in old binding, slightly later, unfortunately incomplete of the folding map, very coveted and often missing, replaced here by a blank sheet. It includes the hardback leaves D2 and D3, i.e. without the passage against Richelieu which is found in the non hardback copies at the end of the first paragraph of page 27 after "l'expérience de telles descouvertes". The censured passage is this one: "...de telles descouvertes; ce que n'ont pas les grands hommes d'estat qui sçavent mieux manier & conduire le gouvernement & l'administration d'un Royaume, que celle de la navigation, des expéditions d'outre-mer, & des pays loingtains, pour ne l'avoir jamais practiqué ".
The title bears a handwritten bookplate in Latin: "pecquet , assegon doct. Med. Monsp. [Montispessulani]". This mention could refer to the physician and anatomist Jean Pecquet (1622-1674), one of the pioneers of physiology. He completed his medical studies in Montpellier, thanks to the financing and protection of Nicolas Foucquet. Colbert appointed him as a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1666. The link with the Assengon family appears with his niece Hélène Brocard, his only heiress, who married Charles Assegon, doctor to the duchess of Montpensier.
A few wormholes on the boards and wormholes in the margins of several leaves, with slight damage to the text. Missing on one edge of the first board. Bookplate torn off on the first counterfoil. Some foxing and minor spotting.
Provenance : Jean Pecquet then Hélène Assegon ?, with handwritten bookplate on the title.
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