Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

The New France’s First Birthday 

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[FIRST BASTILLE DAY]. PROCÈS-VERBAL DE LA CONFÉDÉRATION DES FRANÇAIS, à Paris, le quatorze juillet mil sept-cent-quatre-vingt-dix. Paris: J.-R. Lottin, 1790. £7,500

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FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. 96; woodcut vignette on title-page; some spotting in places but largely clean; uncut in contemporary red, white, and blue tricolour wrappers, with manuscript presentation label on upper cover, and additional prospectus tipped in; some wear and dustsoiling to wrappers, but still a striking volume.

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Remarkable volume, patriotically bound in tricolour wrappers, documenting the preparations for the festivities celebrating the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, and destined as a souvenir for members of the National Guard who had been elected deputies.

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The festival, which took the name of Fête de la Fédération, took place over three days in Paris, culminating in a water joust on the Seine on July 18th, in tandem with the launch of a hot air balloon from the École militaire. Along with representatives from every department of France, an estimated 300,000 spectators were present to watch Louis XVI swear to uphold the constitution (as yet unfinished), Lafayette lead a military procession from the site of the by then destroyed Bastille on a white horse, and Talleyrand celebrate Mass. The present publication, containing the various decrees, planning minutes, and discussions between Lafayette, Louis, and the assembly, was presented to members of the Garde national from every department, who participated in the processions and were among those swearing loyalty to the nation; our copy is that of M. Petitot from Dijon in the Côte d’Or, as seen from the manuscript presentation label on the upper cover.

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The work documents the meetings held by Lafayette setting out the order for the celebrations, detailing all the participants, and the order in which they were to appear, with great precision, as well as the texts of the king’s various proclamations, and finally a complete list of the members of the national guard elected to the Federation (to whom copies were given). In the present copy, pasted onto the verso of the upper wrapper, we find also an ‘Avis a mm. les fédérés’, explaining the ways in which the final list was printed: ‘The names of the Federates were printed based on the records of the Paris Federal Committee. The order follows that of their spelling in the lists. We have also omitted the rank of each Federate; it was not indicated on the lists of several districts, which led us to make this omission a general rule, so as not to offend the sensibilities of the brotherhood of which the Federates have given us the most touching example’. 

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Also included is a prospectus, present in one of the two other copies of which we are aware, for Essai historique sur les gardes nationales by Pierre Vaqué.

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The Fête de la Fédération seemed to mark the success of the Revolution and the establishment of a stable constitutional monarchy, with Louis recorded as responding to Lafayette’s proposal of the titles ‘Chef des François’ and ‘Roi d’un Peuple libre’ with ‘May the solemn day where you will renew, in common, your oath to the constitution see the disappearance of all dissension, lead to calm, and let law and liberty reign throughout the kingdom! Defenders of public order, friends of law and liberty, consider that your first duty is the maintenance of order and submission to law, which thanks to a free constitution should be equal for all’ (pp. 16-17). 

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OCLC records copies at Montpellier and the BnF only. 

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