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"Cologne", 1702
Court scandal from the man who invented d'Artagnan, printed under a false address
ANNALES DE LA COUR ET DE PARIS, POUR LES ANNEES 1697. & 1698. TOME SECOND. A COLOGNE, Chez Pierre Marteau. M.DCC.II.
The imprint is a lie, and everyone knew it. A Cologne, Chez Pierre Marteau was a fictitious address invented around 1660 and used for two centuries by Dutch presses printing French books that could not carry a real name: libels, court gossip, political attacks, anything the censor would have stopped. Courtilz used it again and again. A Marteau title page is a reliable signal that what follows was written to be smuggled.
The volume opens on the settlement of Europe. The manifesto of King James produced no effect, it begins, and since the interest of all the Allies required that King William be kept on the throne where the people had placed him, they paid it not the slightest attention. From the plenipotentiaries at Ryswick it moves into what Courtilz was really good at, the traffic of the court: marquises, ministers, governorships, money, marriages and grudges, reported as if by someone who had been in the room. It runs to 444 pages and ends with a full index of names.
Laid in is a printed subscription wrapper, the strip torn from a journal's address band: Votre abonnement finit le 31 mars. M. le Marquis de l'Espinay, maire de Chantonnay. (Vendee.) Contemporary calf, the spine gilt in the compartments, red sprinkled edges, and endpapers in a loud multicoloured comb marble. About 5.25 x 3 x 1.25 inches.
Condition
Good, with one clear fault. The text block is sound, clean and tight, the paper firm, the printing sharp, and the volume is complete to page 444 with the index. Both boards are attached and the book opens and closes properly. The spine leather has flaked away over roughly half its surface at the head and tail, exposing the linings beneath; what survives is still gilt and bright. The calf on the covers is rubbed and darkened and the corners are worn. Tome II alone; Tome I is not present.
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