FROM THE LIBRARY OF LA DUCHESSE DE BERRY, WITH HER GILT ARMORIAL COAT OF ARMS ON BOTH BOARDS, FIRST EDITION OF L’ANNIVERSAIRE, 1816

(DE BERRY, Duchesse) DE RANCÉ, M. and THÉAULON, [Marie]. L’Anniversaire, ou une journée de Philippe-Auguste. Paris: Cussac, 1816. Slim octavo, contemporary full straight-grain red morocco gilt, gilt armorial coat of arms of La Duchesse du Berry on both boards, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, silk endpapers, all edges gilt. $5500.

First edition of the popular French play L’Anniversaire, from the library of La Duchesse de Berry, with her gilt armorial coat of arms on both boards.

This first edition of the French dramatic comedy, L’Anniversaire, is from the library of Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, La Duchesse de Berry, daughter of Francis I of the Two Sicilies, and it contains her gilt coat of arms on both boards (Olivier 2554). La Duchesse de Berry is well remembered for staging a brief rebellion against “King Louis-Philippe, in a vain attempt to gain the crown for her son, Henri Dieudonné, comte de Chambord. Her husband, the Duc de Berry, a son of Charles X of France, had been assassinated in 1820. When Charles was overthrown in 1830, she tried to secure the succession for her son but was forced into exile. In 1832, disguised as a peasant, she crossed the French border from Italy and made her way to the Vendée, where she succeeded in instigating a brief but abortive insurrection (June 1832). She was arrested in Nantes… but was freed in July 1833 with the discovery of her recent marriage to an obscure Italian nobleman, Count Ettore Lucchesi-Palli, an act that exempted her from the French throne. She lived in Austria and Italy until her death” (Encyclopaedia Britannica). This one-act play in verse by dramatists de Rancé and Théaulon premiered at Théâtre-Français on November 16, 1816. Text in French. Quérard, 450. With gilt morocco bookplate of bibliophile Pierre Guerquin, a director of Musées Nationaux de France. Bookplate of collector N.A.C. Embiricos. Tiny bit of marginalia to blank verso of front free endpaper.

A fine copy with an impressive provenance.