[SAINT-RÉAL (César Vichard, abbé de)]. - Lot 135

[SAINT-RÉAL (César Vichard, abbé de)]. Dom Carlos, nouvelle historique. Jouxte la Copie imprimée à Amsterdam chez Gaspar Commelin, 1672. Small in-12, red morocco, gilt right lace, ornate spine, olive-green title-piece, olive-green morocco lining decorated with a small gilt lace, gilt edges (Binding circa 1700). First edition of this masterpiece by Saint-Réal (1643-1692), a Chambéry-born historian and novelist who was also a diplomat in the service of the House of Savoy. Saint-Réal tells the story of the thwarted love between the infant Dom Carlos and his stepmother, Élisabeth de France. Promised to each other, their engagement is broken off when the widowed King of Spain, Philip II, remarries the woman destined for his son. Dom Carlos and Elisabeth continued their love affair in the stifling atmosphere of a court where everyone spied on the other. But the prince made the mistake of supporting the cause of the Netherlands, in revolt against Spanish domination. Philip II, mad with jealousy, uses this as a pretext to force his son to commit suicide, before the queen in turn is poisoned (Chantal Carasco, "L'Écriture de la barbarie et de la monstruosité dans Dom Carlos de Saint-Réal" in Violence de l'écriture..., 2008, pp. 45-53). The first contemporary review of this novel, published anonymously under the title Sentimens d'un homme d'esprit, sur la nouvelle intitulée Dom Carlos (Paris, Guillaume de Luyne, 1673), has been bound in. Fine copy, in a delightful morocco binding lined with lace, attributable to Boyet. Significant wetness to some 50 leaves, split at one spine.