Memoirs of Henri Masers de Latude, former engineer.

First edition under this title, the most complete and accurate of the memoirs of one of the most original captives ever held in French prisons.

Jean Henry, also known as Danry, also known as Masers de Latude, a former engineer, spent 35 years of his life behind bars, from the reign of Louis XV to Louis XVI, first in the Bastille and then in the Pitié-Salpêtrière.

Born in 1725 in Montagnac (Hérault) to a family of rather humble origins, young Latude was determined to shine at the court of Louis XV. But how to achieve this? Nothing could be simpler, he thought then, than to become the savior of the royal mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour. The ploy involved, first, creating a threat—in this case, a false plot—and then transforming himself into a savior.

Arrested—thanks to his handwriting on the package!—then imprisoned by lettre de cachet, Latude became famous for his many spectacular escapes—always resulting in new incarcerations—and the fight he waged, once freed, against the despotism of the lettre de cachet, which led him to align himself with the Revolution, as evidenced by the frontispiece.

“Victim of an unjust and criminal power,Masers would have ended his life in the dungeons,If the art of despotism, as cunning as it was cruel,Could have chained his genius in its fetters.”

It was thanks to the devotion of François Legros, known as Madame Legros, a haberdasher he met in Bicêtre, that he was freed in 1784. This woman, later heroized, had, as early as 1781, sought the support of powerful allies, both men and women of the court.

Superb copy enhanced with a signed autograph letter addressed by Latude to Monseigneur de Lamoignon (Chrétien-François de Lamoignon de Bâville, 1735-1789), ephemeral Keeper of the Seals found dead in the early days of the Estates-General, in which Latude implores his protector to issue a formal notice to the printer Hoffman, accused of distributing contraband copies of his memoirs. 3 pp. in-12 on laid paper, October 6, 1787, Paris. Old collection vignette of the Reims autographophile François-Marie Jolly de Thuisy.

“Monseigneur,

No one knows better than you the enormity of my misfortunes, and I will never forget all the pains you have taken to bring them to an end, from the moment your paternal heart interfered with my unhappy fate. I regard you, and love you as my father, and God knows all the vows I address to Him daily in concert with Madame Legros, for the prosperity and preservation of your precious days.I come today to claim the assured rights that the innocent have on your heart.Mr. Hoffman, polytype printer on Rue Favart, had the audacity, without my knowledge and despite government prohibitions, to print my memoir and clandestinely sell five to six thousand copies. He sent them to all the major cities of the Kingdom [...] it is not right that this dishonest man should reap the fruit of 35 years of my tears [...]Your very humble and very obedient servant,Masers de Latude, engineer,Residing at the Théatins,Rue de Bourbon,in Paris, October 6, 1787.

P. S. Madame Legros asks me to assure you of her very humble respects, and all your dear family.”

Precious copy in a superb binding with the arms of Emperor Francis II (1768-1835),the last Holy Roman Emperor, who became Francis I of Austria in 1804. A great bibliophile whose collection grew to over 100,000 works and now forms the Fideicommiss Bibliothek within the Austrian National Library.