Histoire de la Décadence et de la Chute de l’Empire Romain; Traduit de l’Anglois de M. Gibbon, par M. Leclerc de Septchênes, Secretaire du Cabinet du Roi. Tome Premier [-Quatrième]. Paris, Debure & Moutard, 1786.
Third Edition. Four volumes, 12mo (164 x 94 mm), pp. xx, 328; [iv], 412; [iv], 410; [iv], 368, text browned in part, with the half-titles, in contemporary Austrian quarter calf over speckled boards, distinctive non-sectional gilding on the covers, yellow morocco labels lettered in gilt, bright blue geometric patterned endpapers, bright red edges, from the Starhemberg library at Schloss Eferding, with the library stamp and usual crayon shelf mark on the half-titles.
A delightful copy of Sept-Chênes’ translation of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, from the Starhemberg Library, in fresh condition in a typically Starhemberg binding. The translator, Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, was tutor to the young Louis XVI and the first volume was partly translated by the young king as an exercise in learning English. Sept-Chênes made corrections to the work of his Royal charge and completed the translation, which was first published in three volumes in 1776. Various other translators tackled the remaining volumes of Gibbon’s work and it was finally published by Moutard in its entirety in 18 volumes, 1788-1795.
‘Louis XVI, étudiant l’anglais sous la direction de Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, lecteur de son cabinet, s’est exercé sur le premier volume, publié en 1776, et, arrivé aux 15ème et 16ème chapitres, il abandonna l’ouvrage que revit, continua et fit imprimer M. de Sept-Chênes’ (Brunet).
OCLC lists San Bernadino, Bamberg, Kassel, Gotha, Dresden and Pisa.
See Cioranescu 38375; Norton 80.