Nomographie ou Tableaux Analytiques de Legislation... Paris, 1799

1799. [Paris] De l'Imprimerie Nationale An VII [1799].. [Paris] De l'Imprimerie Nationale An VII [1799]. Tables Used to Describe the Law to Revolutionary Citoyens Sedillez, Mathurin-Louis-Etienne [1745-1820]. Nomographie ou Tableaux Analytiques de Legislation, Accompagnes d'une Explication Sommaire, Pour Servir de Suite aux Vues Generales sur la Composition du Code Civil, Presentees au Conseil des Anciens le 23 Pluviose an 7, Par M.L.E. Sedillez (de Nemours), Department de Seine-et-Marne. [Paris]: De l'Imprimerie Nationale, An VII [1799]. viii, 32, [1]. Seven tables on six folding leaves. Complete. Quarto (11" x 8-1/2"). Uncut and untrimmed stab-stitched text block in original plain paper wrappers. Light soiling and some staining, some loss near foot of spine below text, some wear to spine ends. Light toning to text, somewhat heavier in a few places, faint dampstaining at foot of gutter to front wrapper and following four leaves, a few creases to folding tables. A well-preserved copy. $950. * Only edition. Written by a prolific legal and political writer, this work contains analytical tables of public law with commentary. Very much a product of the Revolutionary period, it embodies a desire to explain the law clearly to the average citizen using the deductive and schematic methods favored by the Enlightenment philosophes. (Sedillez says in the introduction that he wished this book had been written by Montesquieu, Rousseau or Condorcet.) Similar in style to the "Tableau des Connaissances Humaines" found in Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopedie, the tables cover the laws in general, police, justice, interior administration, foreign relations, armed force and public treasure. An introductory table charts the stages of development from a single man to the creation of the French constitution. OCLC locates 5 copies, none in North America. Not in Camus.