‎MABLY, (G. BONNOT DE.)‎
‎Le droit public de l'Europe fondé sur les traitez conclus jusqu'en l'année 1740. Nouvelle édition, augmentée de remarques historiques, politiques, & critiques par Mr. Rousset.‎

‎A Amsterdam, Chez Meynard Uitwerf, 1748. Titles printed in red and black. With title-vignettes. 2 volumes in 1. (20), 296, (16) pp.; (4), 278, (14), (4, publisher's catalogue) pp. Small 8vo. Contemporary marbled calf, spine gilt with raised bands, gilt letteriing, red edges, slightly worn, corners a bit bumped. Tchémerzine-Scheler, iv, p. 247; Camus 246. This is an unauthorized edition published by the Huguenot Rousset, a stipendiary of the Dutch governement. He added an enormous commentary of his own, highly critical of Mably. Rousset acknowledged the usefulness of the compilation, but constantly castigated its author for his biases against the Dutch and the Austrians. In his eyes Mably was plainly an agent of Versailles, inspired by the raison-d'état principles of Richelieu and Colbert. ' ..... Mably had assembled summaries of the major international treaties and agreements of the past century. This was published, with the explanatory notes, in two volumes in 1746, as Le Droit public de l'Europe, ..... It consists of résumés and citations, together with a considerable explanatory apparatus, of the chief international treaties and agreements among the major European powers, from Westphalia onwards. As such, the first edition of the Droit public is a virtual history of international relations from 1648 to 1740. (......) Mably's handbook was a model of clarity and rational exposition, and it met with instant success, not only in France, but abroad as well' (Johnson Kent Wright, A Classical Republican in Eighteenth-Century France. The Political Thought of Mably, pp. 36-37.) - Margins of first two leaves a bit short. ‎

Reference : 16943

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