Yu le Grand et Confucius, Histoire Chinoise ("Yu the Great and Confucius - Chinese History").
CLERC, Nicolas-Gabriel.
From Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
AbeBooks Seller Since July 26, 1999
Quantity: 1From Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
AbeBooks Seller Since July 26, 1999
Quantity: 1About this Item
First edition of this physiocratic work representative of the turn towards Confucianism in 18th-century French intellectual circles. The author saw China's legendary emperor Yu as a paragon of good governance who Europe would do well to emulate. Nicolas-Gabriel Clerc (1726-1798) was a physician, historian, and tutor to the Grand Duke of Russia (later Czar Paul I), to whom the book is dedicated. Invoking Quesnay, Clerc presents Yu as someone who governed virtuously and by extension made his subjects virtuous - a pointed lesson to the future ruler about the nature of kingship and the secret to socio-economic development. During the French Revolution, revolutionaries such as Louis Antoine de Saint-Just were drawn to Clerc's argument that "natural law was the only authentic foundation for all political order and legislation" (Edelstein). Yu le Grande's physiocracy was predicated on a good amount of intellectual distortion. "What is striking about this book is the frank manner in which Clerc admits to fictionalizing Chinese history" (Mungello, p. 107). Most blatantly, he describes Yu as Confucius's contemporary, using Yu's actions to gild the Confucian lily. Cordier (2nd edition) 604; Löwendahl 549; Lust 1275. Dan Edelstein, The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution, 2009; David Emil Mungello, The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, 2013. Quarto (255 x 103 mm). Contemporary French polished cat's paw sheep, raised bands, red spine label lettered in gilt, compartments ruled in gilt and decorated with gilt pomegranate and foliate tools, blind panels to covers, board edges ruled in gilt, marbled endpapers, edges red, green silk bookmarker. With 8 folding tables. Contemporary French bookseller's ticket on front pastedown. Spine only lightly rubbed, loss to headcap, rear joint tender with beginnings of split, stripping at foot of rear board, text bright, a few tables proud and toned at fore edge. A very good copy. Seller Inventory # 165461
Bibliographic Details
Title: Yu le Grand et Confucius, Histoire Chinoise ...
Publisher: Soissons: De l'Imprimerie de Ponce Courtois, 1769
Edition: 1st Edition
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