Almanach royal pour l'année MDCCXXI, calculé au meridien de Paris…

Paris: Laurent d'Houry, 1721 [1720]

[2], 80, 77-346, [2] p.  |  8vo  |  pi1 A-E^8 2E^2 F-X^8 Y^6  |  196 x 123 mm

The 1721 almanac for France’s political and business elite, including the monthly calendars and astronomical tidbits typical of almanacs, but also birth dates of French royalty, the names of countless French office holders, administrative details on major French institutions, important fair dates, and details on the country’s many postal routes. The book essentially functions as a handbook to the French government.  ¶  Established in 1700 and remaining in print through 1919, the Almanach royal evolved from a similar publication Laurent d’Houry first issued in 1683. The series was among the first specialized almanacs in France, providing readers with “access to sources of information that could help them cut through the complexity of the administration (urban and economic growth had made such information more necessary than ever). Time still played a central role in these new almanacs, but calendars were reduced to essentials as texts were called upon to provide all sorts of new information” (Roche).

PROVENANCE:  The calendar interleaved, these packed with 24 pages of contemporary manuscript, plus an additional full page on a front fly-leaf. While the content is quite varied, it’s replete with the kind of notes we might expect from the book’s intended audience: many memoranda of deaths and marriages, largely those of the country’s elite; some remarks on the depreciation of French currency, this perhaps fallout from the 1720 Mississippi Bubble; a number of meteorological observations, commonly citing the thermometer at the Académie des sciences; the divorce of Charles, Count of Armagnac, it remarked that his ex-wife (Françoise Adélaide de Noailles) had been placed in a convent; the admittance of Jean Boivin, royal librarian, to the French Academy; the establishment of a committee to address “la pêste en Provênce,” likely referring to Europe’s final plague epidemic (facing the June calendar); the departure of Cardinal Rohan for Rome; the visit to Paris of a Constantinople envoy; notifications of a few official appointments; a few notes on the election of Cardinal Michelangelo de’Conti as pope (Innocent XIII); death of Captain de Breteuil in a duel; several entries on the convalescence of Louis XV in August, who had fallen ill, incidentally amid rumors that he’d been poisoned; and Italian actors performing comedies, the last page of manuscript devoted almost entirely to the year’s festivals and operas performed. Scattered handwritten updates to some printed names in the various directories. ¶ Early bookplate bearing the Galard de Béarn family arms, the shield supported by two gryphons and surmounted by a ducal coronet. A couple of handwritten notes may further elucidate the book’s engaged owner: facing February, a note on the death of the Duchess of Brissac, “the grandmother” (the owner’s grandmother?); there was a minor 18th-century composer, René de Galard de Béarn, Marquis de Brassac. Facing March, what appears to be a more personal death notice: “le sieur le Bret; mon secrétaire du conseil mort.” ¶ A revealing example of one person’s interaction with everyday print, fulfilling the purpose of the ample white space provided.

CONDITION:  Contemporary brown leather, the spine tooled in gold; marbled endpapers; edges sprinkled red; ribbon marker. Title vignette; small eclipse woodcut on p. 1; two-line moon phase decorations; head- and tail-pieces.  ¶  Extremities gently worn, with a small chip at the head of the spine, and a superficial 1.5-inch split in the leather at the bottom of the front joint.

REFERENCES:  Daniel Roche, France in the Enlightenment (Harvard University, 1998), p. 95

Item #233