CHASTELLUX François-Jean De la félicité publique, ou Considérations sur le sort des hommes dans les différentes époques de l’histoire. Nouvelle édition augmentée de notes inédites de Voltaire.

First edition with Voltaire’s notes.

The Marquis Chastellux (1734-1788), philosopher and member of the Académie française, joined Rochambeau’s army during the American war of Independence where he became a close friend to George Washington. Friend of Voltaire and other Encyclopédistes he believed that the progress of humanity is to be found in perfectionning the moral belief, but also in the advancement of art and science. Chastellux’s new reading of the institutions in classical antiquity and his analyse of new ways of government are all included in his work De la Félicité publique whose importance Voltaire compared to De l’Esprit des Loix by Montesquieu. This new, revised edition, with the last chapter exclusively devoted to Public Debt contains here for the first time the notes by Voltaire.

One of the very few large paper copies printed on heavy wove paper.