Canal de Languedoc - Lemon morocco - Lot 319

Canal de Languedoc - Lemon morocco RIQUET de BONREPOS (MM. de CARAMAN descendants of Pierre-Paul de) baron Histoire du Canal de Languedoc, rédigée sur les pièces authentiques conservées à la Bibliothèque Impériale et aux Archives du Canal, par les descendans de Pierre-Paul Riquet de Bonrepos. Paris, Crapelet ; Deterville, An XIII, 1805. In-8: VIII, 400pp; engraved frontispiece by DELVAUX after MYRIS, a folding table and large folding map of the Canal des Communications in fine. Lemon morocco signed LEFUEL, ornate smooth spine, black and gilded mosaic listels and fleurons, black title page, geometric decoration of gilded roulettes and black bands with alternating gilded decorations framing the boards, central CM gilded numeral on boards, gilded roulettes, purple moire endpapers, gilded edges. Beneath its historical exterior lies a polemical work, a response to General Andreossi's text entitled "Histoire du Canal du Midi", in which the latter attributes the "invention" of the canal to his great-great-grandfather François Andreossi, an engineer who took part in the surveying and construction of the canal. The book's editors, from the Comtes de Caraman branch, worked on their grandfather's manuscripts. Pierre-Paul Riquet, Comte de Caraman, devoted his entire life to the construction of the Languedoc canal linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. He amassed a considerable fortune which, thanks to the impetus of Colbert and Louis XIV, enabled him to launch this pharaonic project, to which he devoted 14 years. He died without seeing the project through to completion. His descendants continued the project and recovered the funds invested. We had noted on another copy that several of them were distributed by one of the authors "to his colleagues in the legislative body (February 22, 1810)". Larousse titles Riquet comte de Caraman, G. de Caraman in his "Guide" gives him baron de Bonrepos (Michaud XXXI 129-130). Provenance: The gilded number CM suggests that this is a personal copy of one of Riquet de Bonrepos's descendants. In fact, one of the copies bound identically by Lefuel from the library of a descendant of Riquet de Bonrepos and bearing the Caraman-Riquet family numeral CR was presented at Sotheby's in 2006.