PORT-ROYAL Pseaumes de David. Traduction nouvelle selon l’Hebreu & la Vulgate. Nouvelle Edition, reveuë & corrigée.

M. Delaveau & D. Hillard, Bibles imprimées du XVe au XVIIIe siècle conservées à Paris, BnF, 2002, n° 2995.

A remarkable translation of the Psalms, a masterpiece of French classicism. The biblical poems attributed to David appear here in three synoptic versions: the Latin text of the Vulgate, printed in italics, is flanked by the famous French translation of the Vulgate by Isaac-Louis Le Maistre de Sacy (1613-1684) and the French version based on the Hebrew text by Antoine Lemaistre (1608-1658), the latter’s brother. These two versions, presented here in a revised and corrected copy, were first published separately in 1665 by the same publisher before being brought together in a volume printed in 1666 by the Elzevier family. The privilege of 1665, which also applies to the present edition, is attributed to Jean Du Mont, a pseudonym used interchangeably for the two translators.

An exegete, translator and poet, Isaac Le Maistre de Sacy was one of the leading recluses of Port-Royal. He was the grandson of Antoine Arnauld and the younger brother of two other recluses of the Jansenist abbey, Antoine Le Maistre and Simon Le Maistre de Séricourt. Under the influence of the Abbé de Saint-Cyran, Isaac-Louis became a priest in 1649 and became the director of conscience of the nuns of Port-Royal. His greatest claim to fame is the commented translation of the Bible, known as the “Bible de Sacy”, which he composed alone or in collaboration with other gentlemen from Port-Royal (including Pascal and Racine).

The Psalms appeared in 1665, the New Testament in 1667. The iconography consists of a frontispiece by Nicolas Pitau after Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne and two vignettes, including one on the title by Pierre Landry. Finally, it should be noted that the BnF copy contains 14 folios, paginated I-XXVIII, which are not to be found in our copy, nor in the one kept at the Arsenal. These leaves, which contain a “Table des Pseaumes que l’on dit pendant tous les dimanches, les festes, & autres jours de l’année, selon l’usage du Breviaire romain” followed by the extract from the royal privilege of 19 July 1665 – signed Cadet, granted for ten years to Sieur Du Mont and transferred by him to Pierre Le Petit – do not belong to the work but were simply included in a series of copies of the Pseaumes. Three elements support this assertion: the excerpt from the privilege and the “achevé d’imprimer” duplicate what already appears on f. a8v; the leaves are signed with tilded vowels, a system of signatures that does not fit in with that of this 1671 edition; finally, the insertion of this Table does not tally with the Pseaumes advertisement that appears at the foot of the f. a8v that precedes it. This volume is therefore complete.

We would like to thank M. Jean-Marc Chatelain, chief librarian of the BnF, for his invaluable help to solve this bibliographic enigma.

Very fine copy, rubricated in red, and well preserved in an exquisite contemporary binding. It had belonged to Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau (1749-1791) (note on the fly-leaf, lot 806 in the sale of his libary, sold in January 1792).

Other provenances : Henri de La Bédoyère (book plate, not in his 1862 sales catalogue) – Henri de Sauvage – Édouard et Emmanuel Bocher – Édouard Rahir (book plate, sale 1937, lot 1315).