Aristippe, Ou De La Cour

Paris: Augustin Courbé, 1658., 1658. 4to. pp. 4 p.l., 244, [18]table, [1]privilege]. engraved frontis. by Huret. engraved printer’s device on title. woodcut headpieces & initials. contemporary calf (worn but sound, short splits in joints, light dampstaining to lower margin – heavier in first 2 quires, some light foxing & browning). First Edition. Balzac was one of the writers who contributed the most to the perfection of the French language at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and introduced a masterly clearness, refined elegance and precision based on classical models into French prose style. He is thus credited with having executed in French prose a reform parallel to Malherbe’s in verse. He enjoyed the patronage of the Cardinal de Valette, who brought him to Italy and made him his agent in Rome, and upon his return to France, secured that of the Archbishop of Luçon and Cardinal Richelieu. Esteemed the leading prosaist of his time, he was unanimously elected to the Académie Française in 1634. The present treatise on the duties of sovereigns is dedicated to Christina of Sweden, who was herself an admirer of Balzac. "Balzac "contributed greatly to the creation of the paradoxically formal colloquial style which still holds sway in French literary and academic circles…[he] wished above all to impose order, regularity, and gravity in prose…". (New Oxford Companion to French Literature) Brunet I 632-33. Cioranescu 9682. Tchemerzine I 374.. 1st Edition.