social sciences

VILLIAUMÉ, [Claude]. ~ Guide des personnes qui désirent se placer, s’associer, se marier, vendre ou acquérir des fonds de commerce, prêter, emprunter, se procurer des commis, régisseurs, dames et demoiselles de compagnie, etc… [Paris: Tiger, n.d., c. 1812].

First edition, known otherwise only from the Bibliothèque nationale copy, of this tiny promotional pamphlet for the notorious (yet successful) marriage agent in imperial Paris. more...

It is a remarkable little testimony to post-revolutionary upheaval and its effects on social relations. Marriage-broker Villiaume is credited as the pioneer in France of advertising for partners in the petites affiches of newspapers. He had apparently hit upon the idea while imprisoned in the mental asylum for his part in an assassination attempt against Napoleon: he is reported to have made enquiries into the social situation of all the male inmates (which naturally at this date included numerous members of the old aristocracy) and then did the same among their female counterparts in the women’s asylum. On his release he founded the Agence Générale et Centrale pour Pais et l’Empire on the Rue Neuve-Saint-Eustache and began a Parisian craze for marriage brokering.

Evidently prepared to turn his hand to any promising enterprise this pocket guide advertises his services as a broker not just for marriages, but of various other situations and he takes the opportunity to defend himself against his many detractors and to advertise the sale of his neighbours’ second-hand furniture.

‘Founder of the most widely known matrimonial agency in postrevolutionary France, Claude Villiaume proved his talents as an enterprising ad man who exploited the uniquely commercial format of the Parisian Petites affiches to establish a virtual monopoly on the business under the Empire. Offering to serve as a conduit for men and women who pursued love anonymously in the Petites affiches, he skillfully marketed his “marriages by the classifieds” to lonely, uprooted individuals throughout imperial France. Villiaume pitched his unions as part of a new commercial and social world of movement in Paris. He sought to facilitate the circulation of capital and people by forging family alliances and love matches across multiple social and geographic borders. By linking marital choice and courtship to the vagaries of consumer capitalism, the agent transformed marriage into a form of commercial exchange associated with the new urban values of abundance, pleasure, and social mobility’ (abstract from Andrea Mansker, ‘Marriages by the Petites Affiches: Advertising Love, Marital Choice, and Commercial Matchmaking in Napoléon's Paris’, French Historical Studies (2018) 41 (1): 1-31).. see full details

£950

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BECK, Julia, artist and calligrapher. Isabelle BOGELOT and Lady ABERDEEN. ~ [Calligraphic certificate]. Paris, 1922.

A calligraphic certificate by Julia Beck, being the copy of a letter of 8 June 1914 sent by a leader of the women’s movement in France, Isabelle Bogelot to Canadian feminist, Lady Aberdeen endorsing the new book by Indiana feminist, May Wright-Sewell, entitled Genesis of the International Council of Women (1914). more...

£400

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[SOUZOUKI, Ruytchi. ~ Sketches from the cinema and other entertainments. Paris, 1949-62].

A superb collection of over 300 spontaneous sketches made in situ in Paris of popular films and entertainments of the 1950s, including the classics Les Vacances de M. more...

£3500

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[EON DE BEAUMONT, Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée, chevalier d’]. ~ Dernière lettre du chevalier D’Eon à M. le Comte de Guerchy en datte du 5 Aout, 1767. Avec l’extrait de la procedure en bonne forme… seconde edition. Amsterdam: Aux dépens du corps des Militaires François, 1767.

A notorious pamphlet by the famous transvestite spy, issued during one of the most colourful and tangled episodes of Anglo-French diplomacy. more...

This ‘seconde’ edition issued at the expense of the corps des Militaire François in D’Eon’s defence. The first edition (also 1767) bore a Londres imprint and survives in only a handful of copies; our Amsterdam edition is even rarer with no copies located in Worldcat.

Following a successful military career d’Eon served Louis XV in English diplomacy and espionage from 1762, gathering defence intelligence for a projected French invasion. Living lavishly in London he became something of an embarrassment to his government who stopped his pension and sought to recall him to France. He became embroiled in a bitter row with his compatriot Claude Louis François Régnier de Guerchy (1715–1767), who he saw as an interloper on his diplomatic patch. ‘From October 1763 the dispute took a spectacular turn as d’Eon published allegations that Guerchy had tried to poison him. In March 1764, he went further still and published a selection of his diplomatic papers, which heaped ridicule on Guerchy and his allies in France’ (Burrows, A King’s Ransom). The dispute was a profound embarrassment to the French, not least because d’Eon successfully brought the matter to the English courts and because it drew attention to the chevalier’s increasingly complex personal life. It was in the wake of this affair that the chevalier went into hiding in Byfleet (Surrey), spending a years disguised as a woman and going by the name of Madame Duval. This transvestite experiment became a pattern and the remainder of his career was lived partly as a woman and he became a celebrated figure in London society.

This pamphlet, a superb piece of propaganda issued on d’Eon’s behalf appeared after the comte de Guerchy’s death in 1767 and reproduces the last letter sent to him by d’Eon recounting the facts of the poisoning case together with extensive translations from English legal records of the law case as it worked its way, very publicly, through the courts. . see full details

£1100

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HOLLAR, Wenceslaus. Robert SAYER, publisher. ~ Theatru[m] mulierum sive Varietas atq[ue] differentia habituum foeminei sexus diversorum Europae nationum hodierno tempore vulgo in usu… Londini Ao 1643. London: Robert Sayer, [n.d., c 1795].

Hollar’s small format plates of European women and their costume are dated from 1642-4 and followed his successful series Ornatus muliebris Anglicanus of 1640. more...

£1600

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