Publisher: Lyon: Chez Hilaire Baritel, 1693.

Illustration: Printer’s device on title; ornamental headpieces and tailpieces throughout.

Edition: Lyon printing, 1693.

Binding: Contemporary full calf, spine with raised bands, gilt floral compartments and morocco title-label. Binding worn, with losses at headcap and abrasions to boards, but still intact with a handsome spine showing gilt ornaments. Red speckled edges.

Description: A compact duodecimo of 188 pages, offering pointed reflections on the faults of others (les défauts d’autruy). The work belongs squarely in the golden age of French moralist literature, following La Rochefoucauld’s Maximes and La Bruyère’s Caractères. Each brief chapter highlights human weakness — vanity, hypocrisy, insincerity — in a style at once pithy and aphoristic.

Condition: Good. Binding rubbed with losses to head of spine, joints cracked but holding. Internally clean, with attractive ornaments and sharp type.

Annotation: A scarce Lyonnais imprint from 1693, offering witty and piercing insights into human folly. Works like this are the bridge between salon literature and practical moral teaching, showing how the maximes tradition spread beyond Paris into provincial presses. Baritel’s Lyon shop is well-known for devotional and reflective texts, and this example situates the genre within everyday readership. Copies in contemporary calf are seldom encountered on the market, making this a charming and authentic survival of French moralist thought at the close of the 17th century.

Item #175

Price: $300.00