[CONSTITUTION] DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD D'ENVILLE, LOUIS ALEXANDRE (Duc de), translator. Constitutions des Treize Etats-Unis de L'Amerique.
Philadelphia and Paris: [printed for La Rochefoucault and Benjamin Franklin by] Ph.-D. Pierres and Pissot, Father and Sons, 1783. One of 500 copies of the regular issue (100 copies were issued on large paper). Contemporary French calf in modern slipcase, all edges sprinkled red. 7 5/8 x 4 3/4 inches (19.5 x 12 cm); 540 pp., the title page with the obverse of the Great Seal of the United States, the first use in a book. Upper joint broken, lower joint starting, extremities of binding repaired, first signature pulling from text block, but a clean copy internally.

The translator, the Duc De La Rochefoucault, was profoundly sympathetic to the American Revolution. He befriended Benjamin Franklin soon after his arrival in France in 1776. This work, which incorporates the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the treaties between the United States and France, the Low Countries, and Sweden, includes over fifty footnotes most probably by Franklin. Initially a supporter of the French Revolution, and an elected deputy of the Estates General of 1789, he was killed in 1792 after his arrest while en route to the Château de La Roche-Guyon.
As Streeter notes "Franklin's grand gesture in publishing and distributing these constitutions, about which there was an intense interest and curiosity among statesmen, was one of his chief achievements as propagandist for the new American republic." Franklin himself stated his aims with this publication in a letter to Thomas Mifflin of 25 December 1783: "The extravagant Misrepresentations of our Political State in foreign Countries, made it appear necessary to give them better Information, which I thought could not be more effectually and authentically done, than by publishing a Translation into French...." It is a work of great appeal for its association with Franklin, as the first appearance in print of the Great Seal, and as an early European printing of the primary documents of American Independence. Howes C-716; Livingston Franklin and His Press at Passy pp.181-188; Sabin 16118; Streeter sale II:1035.

C The Collection of Jay I. Kislak sold to benefit the Kislak Family Foundation

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