GERARD (Abbé Philippe-Louis). The Count of Valmont, or The E - Lot 83

GERARD (Abbé Philippe-Louis). The Count of Valmont, or The Errors of Reason. Letters collected and published by M… Paris, Moutard, 1777. Five in-12 volumes, contemporary lemon-colored morocco binding, three gilt fillets on the covers with a coat of arms in the center, spines adorned with title and volume number labels in red morocco, interior lace, gilt edges. The most beautiful edition of this successful epistolary novel, inspired by the author, Philippe-Louis Gérard (1731–1813), canon of Saint-Louis du Louvre, through his turbulent youth. It is illustrated with fourteen ravishing full-page plates by Monnet, engraved on copper by Dambrun and Louis le Grand, including five frontispieces. Marie-Antoinette’s coat of arms is engraved at the top of the dedication page. A VERY BEAUTIFUL AND PRECIOUS COPY DEDICATED TO QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE, BOUND IN FINE LEMON-COLORED MOROCCO LEATHER FEATURING HER COAT OF ARMS. Having entered religious orders to escape the poverty into which a somewhat dissolute life had led him, Gérard would later produce several works of a moral and philosophical nature, but it is to his only novel, *The Count of Valmont*, published in 1774, in which he recounts the dramatic story of his conversion, that he owes his fame. Nicolas Brucker, who has devoted a study to him—*A Christian Reception of the Enlightenment. *Le comte de Valmont by Abbé Gérard* (Paris: Champion, 2006)—sees it as a work “representative of the alliance between anti-philosophy and the sensuous current […]. Hailed by *L’Année littéraire* as a “literary phenomenon”—as indeed attested by its thirty-five known editions—it was praised by Chateaubriand as an example of a Christian novel, following J.-P. Camus and preceding his own works.” Although, in substance, everything separates this wise novel of moral and religious edification from Choderlos de Laclos’s work of psychological analysis set against a backdrop of unbridled libertinism, the similarity in literary form, the shared names of the two main characters (Count and Viscount de Valmont), and the common theme of moral depravity have led some critics to view Abbé Gérard’s work as one of the sources for *Dangerous Liaisons*. This fine copy is cited by Cohen (Illustrated Books of the 18th Century, p. 129) and appeared in 1893 in the Répertoire de la Librairie Morgand (no. 5207) at a price of 2,500 francs. The bindings of volumes IV and V are very slightly and evenly browned. Acquired by Émile Rossignol in 1964.

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