1 / 2
Photo 1/2 du lotPhoto 2/2 du lot
OGER-BLANCHET

195 - VIDEL, Louis – *Le Melante* by Sieur Videl, secretary to His…
See original version (French)

Estimate €150
Sale commission
Description
VIDEL, Louis – *Le Melante* by Sieur Videl, secretary to His Grace the Constable. Romantic adventures of the time. Paris, Samuel Thiboust, 1624. small 8vo, (12) leaves (including frontispiece), 1015 pp., trimmed short at the top, occasionally affecting the running title; the upper part of the frontispiece is missing over a length of approximately 5 mm, paper slightly yellowed, a few foxing spots, fawn calfskin binding slightly later, ‘St PORT’ in gilt lettering on the covers, decorated ribbed spine with a lion at the tail, small tears to the upper cap. BRUNET V, 1183 (‘rare’). LEVER 262. First edition, dedicated to Marshal de Créquy. Videl was born in Serres in the Hautes-Alpes, around 1598. He served as secretary to the Duke of Lesdiguières (from 1628 until the Duke’s death in 1638), whose biography he published in 1638. The extremely demanding secretarial duties, of which he complained, did not prevent him from living a joyful and lavish life. His biographer Chorier (Vita Boessatii, p. 188) reports that he played the lute, loved to dance and perform in ballets, enjoyed fine dining and paraded through the towns of the province in the wake of his master, mounted on a magnificently harnessed horse, covered in sumptuous saddlecloths. According to Coulet (p. 153), *Mélante* is a pastoral novel inspired to the point of being a carbon copy of *L’Astrée*. In Crete, and especially in Cyprus, amidst an eternal spring, the shepherds revere honourable love and are scandalised by the mockery of the unbelieving Mélante and the frivolous Célymon, who are modelled on Hylas. Nevertheless, Videl’s novel remains, prior to *La Clélie*, the text in which the analytical effort to grasp the various causes from which love springs is most clearly evident (p. 72), in which he distinguishes between love born of beauty, love born of inclination or obligation, or of tenderness, or of kindness, or of ‘accortise’, or of pity. He foreshadows the famous ‘map of tenderness’. (Magendie, p. 317). The frontispiece, depicting the characters tracing a sort of itinerary on an illustrated map through the various episodes of the novel, foreshadows the ‘geography of sentiment’ brought into fashion by *La Clélie*. Possibly a supralibros by Jean-Baptiste Gluck (1674–1748), Baron de Saint-Port. Ex-libris of Rob. de Billy.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale The Jean Demaux Collection – Part 2
Auction location
Auction time 09/16/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
You may also like