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Emerging from July 4^th (and practicing our pronunciation of “semiquincentennial”), we in America are in a revolutionary spirit. Luckily, the overthrow of the government is a popular summer activity the world over, and on July 14^th we get to celebrate the storming of the Bastille and the French taking our good ideas and adding guillotines.

All killing aside, the links between the two revolutions are extensive and not without irony; the French interest in the cause of American Independence, mostly meant by Louis XVI as a stick in the eye of the British, ticked over into the late 1780’s, when his absolute rule was dissolved. France was the first nation to recognize American statehood, and her naval aide was crucial to Washington’s victory (after he’d bested Burgoyne in 1777).

Arader’s holdings of material related to the American Revolution are, unsurprisingly, quite substantial. Thus I’ve had to make a narrow selection of items. Anglo-highlights include Blaskowitz’s manuscript headquarters map of Philadelphia from 1778, Burgoyne’s 1780 defense of his actions (ex-coll. George Clinton Ward and Bruce McKinney, though see our other examples) and Jefferys’s American Atlas of 1776. I’ll pass over the Ratzer map and other treasures, but they’re here all right.

          

Perhaps less familiar to the bibliophile (same in English and French, happily) are the French publications about our War of Independence, including a superb Neptune Americo-Septentrional, commissioned by Sartine to ready the French navy to support Washington’s ground effort. Ours is from the Dépôt de la Marine — the publisher of the atlas (“Neptune” being the maritime version) — but during the republican period (i.e., 1792–1804).

At a smaller scale are Ponce & Godefroy’s ca. 1784 Recueil d’estampes representant les differents evenemens de la Guerre qui a procuré l’Indépendance aux Etats unis de l’Amérique. This collection of views and maps gives a very, well, French view of the Revolution, with a focus on French participation as well as the broader struggle between the English and the French, including in the West Indies and Africa. We have a beautiful presentation copy from the greatest collector of military material, Anne S.K. Brown, to her collaborate Richard Rice, who was curator of rare books at Princeton for more than 20 years.

     

The publication of these views (see our other three) after the end of the war points to French interest in overthrowing a tax-happy king. As early as 1791, Pierre Didot began to memorialize the Révolution in images — the Collection complete des tableaux historiques de la révolution française — that were engraved and circulated by subscription until 1796; ours, bound by the legendary firm of Bradel, is the first collected edition of 1798. It depicts famous events, not-so-famous events and the portraits of the key players in the Révolution, from Louis and Marie-Antoinette to Marat, Robespierre and Napoleon.

          

Perhaps most exciting, if not as visually arresting (forgive the pun, Louis Capet), is the first edition of the first French Constitution (14 September 1791), one of perhaps 25 or so known to survive. It is surely the greatest monument of the effort to end absolute monarchy: the birth certificate of French democracy. As with the major documents of the American Revolution, printing the text was devolved onto the smaller constituencies; our document is from Montpellier (in l’Hérault). Were this an American Constitution, of course — not to compete; my fries will be forever French — it might sell for upward of $1M, but this monument to French governance, certified by the administrators of Béziers, can be yours for a mere $2,400.