Correspondance Politique et Confidentielle, inédite de Louis XVI, avec ses Frères, et Plusieurs Personnes Célèbres, Pendant les Dernières Années de Son Règne, et Jusqu'a Sa Mort: Avec des Observations par Hélène-Maria Williams
Contributions
- Anonymous (110)
- author
- L'Imprimerie de la rue de Vaugirard (English Press)
- publisher
- Nicolas-Amable-Germain Debray
- publisher
Related resources
- has translation
- The political and confidential correspondence of Lewis the Sixteenth. With observations on each letter translation has paratext
Notes
Worldcat lists the 1803 French edition of Ms Williams' annotated translation under the authorship of François Babié de Bercenay & Sulpice Imbert de la Platière. The Princeton University edition (on Googlebooks) also has their names written in pencil on the cover.
According to Madeleine Stern, the apocryphal letters that Ms Williams purchased from Levrault Freres for 150 louis were written by Babié de Bercenay and Imbert de la Platiere as a joke and sold to Levrault for 2400 francs. Ms Williams acquired additional letters from other sources and spent a year editing them with anti-monarchical and anti-Bourbon commentary to expose the treachery of the court during the Revolution. 2000 copies of a 3-volume English translation were printed, intended for the US but just before publication, the Imprimerie on the Rue de Vaugiraud (English Press) was visited by the police and both editions seized. James Smith, Stone's director of the press was arrested and summonsed to the prefecture of the police where he was detained for five days. Napoleon was about to become Emperor of France and it would appear that there was sufficient respect for monarchy in general to find Williams' presentation of Louis XVI's letters offensive. Indeed, the former royalist politician Bertrand de Moleville published and had translated his own 'Refutation of the libel against the memory of the Late King of France' (1804, Cadell & Davies) condemning Ms Williams as a "doting, superannuated fondler of the revolution" whose work was a "scandalous production". As a result of this censorship, counterfeit editions soon appeared in Paris to cater for what appeared to be becoming a bit of a "succes de scandale".
See Stern, 'The English Press in Paris etc.' (1980), p.339ff.
It was reprinted in 1817 by Gide fils. https://www.worldcat.org/title/louis-xvi-peint-par-lui-meme-ou-correspondance-et-autres-ecrits-de-ce-monarque/oclc/11765142. Manuscript original of the forged letters unknown.
[NB: add presumed authors and Debray as bookseller]