SOCIAL SCANDAL
[Richelieu-Saint-Vincent affair]: Interrogatoires subis par le Sr de Vedel-Montel, Chevalier de Saint-Louis, Major du Régiment Dauphin, Infanterie, pardevant M. le Lieutenant-Criminel au Châtelet de Paris.
[Bound with:]
Requête au parlement, les chambres assemblées, & les Princes & Pairs y séant, pour François de Vedel-Montel, Chevalier de l’Ordre Royal & Militaire de St Louis, Lieutenant-Colonel d’Infanterie, & Major du Régiment Dauphin: contre M. le Maréchal Duc de Richelieu, Pair de France: En nullité de la procédure du Châtelet de Paris, & en prise à partie contre le Sieur Bachois, Lieutenant-Criminel.
[Bound with:]
Memoire sur le provisoire pour le Sieur de Vedel-Montel, Chevalier de Saint-Louis, Major du Régiment Dauphin, Infanterie. Contre M. le Maréchal Duc de Richelieu.
A Paris, de l’Imprimerie de L. Cellot, rue Dauphine [III: De l’Imprimerie de C. Simon, rue des Mathurins]. 1775.
Submissions in the scandalous and highly-publicised Richelieu-Saint-Vincent affair. “from 1774 to 1777 a peer of the realm accused a noblewoman of fraud and forgery, in a case rife with tales of sordid financial and sexual intrigue [...] the central figures [...] were among the highest of France’s high society: the elites of the realm had taken, it seemed, to washing their dirty linen in public” (Maza). Our particular documents carrying submissions for a Jewish tradesman, Rubit or Rubi, who was involved in the high-profile case. His defence challenges common antisemitic tropes.
The Marquise de Fauris de Saint-Vincent, who lived in a convent (she was placed there after committing indiscretions earlier in her life), had an affair with the Duc de Richelieu, a godson of Louis XIV and well-known libertine. He sued her for forging large money-orders, and she countersued, and claimed that she carried a child by him. Dragged into the case was a soldier, François de Vedel-Montel, who was another lover of the marquise, and the said Rubit or Rubi, who was a garment-merchant. The present papers are all for Vedel-Montel and the first and second have sections for Rubi appended (pages 83-102 in first work and 45-88 of second). Rubi is defended in the second by François de Neufchateau, who was to play a role in the French Revolution. Neufchateau, who writes in Rubi’s first-person voice, has him describe himself as taking pride in “the virtuous obscurity of a modest trade” (tr. Maza). Rubi is requested it seems to produce a mixture of cash and luxury goods in return for the marquise’s bills (the submission contains itemised descriptions of luxury furnishings). Rubi has to defend himself against the Duc’s charges that he has been a usurer - accusations which it is implicitly suggested, work through appealing to antisemitism. “The agents of M. the marshal Richelieu repeat on each page of his submissions [the accusation of usury], to debase me and to make me hateful. This inculpation is an excellent resource, when there are no real wrongs to hold against an honest merchant [...] It transforms him into one of those insatiable vampires” (II, p.65).
From the first year of printing, although likely predated by quarto editions.
Details
Three works in one volume, 17.1 cms. x 10.4 cms. in binding, in duodecimo, pp. 102 [2]; [4] 88; 57 [3]. With final blanks to first and third works, and half-titles to second and third. Page 83 of first work a section-title (page 84 blank). Page 45 in second work a section-title (page 46 blank). Woodcut title-page decoration and head-pieces. Light age-yellowing, very good, bound in contemporary speckled paper boards, orange morocco gilt label, marbled pastedowns and endpapers, speckled edges, green placemarker ribbon (binding slightly rubbed but very good). Old shelfmark label to spine, same shelfmark written in pencil to f.f.e.p. verso.
OCLC shows copies outside France at (I, II, III) University of Ottawa, Zentralbibliothek Zurich; (I, II) GWU, Society of the Cincinnati.
Sarah Maza, Private lives and public affairs: the causes célèbres of prerevolutionary France (Berkeley 1993 - consulted in e-edition), see chapter 3.