Constitutions des Treize États-Unis de l'Amerique.

A Philadelphie, et se trouve à Paris [Printed for Benjamin Franklin by], Chez Ph.-D. Pierres … Pissot, pere & fils, 1783.. First collected edition in French. 8°, contmporary quarter calf over decorated boards (joints cracked and weak, worn at extremities), spine richly gilt with raised bands in six compartments, crimson morocco lettering piece in second compartment from head, gilt letter, marbled endleaves, text block edges sprinkled red and blue-green. Woodcut seal of the United States of America on title-page. Internally clean. Overall in good to very good condition. (2 ll.), 540 pp. *** First collected edition in French, translated by the Duc de la Rochefoucauld. Six hundred copies were printed (of which there were 100 on large paper). The Seal of the United States, eagle, stars and stripes, designed by Franklin, is used in the imprint on the title-page. This is the first use of the Seal in a book. In addition to the Constitution of each of the thirteen states, the text includes the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and three treaties (between the newly independent United States and France, Sweden, and The Netherlands, respectively). The translations were made several years before this publication, at the behest of Franklin, the Minister to the French court, who had negotiated with Great Britain for the independence of the thirteen colonies, and who probably supplied the annotative footnotes throughout. "Franklin's grand gesture in publishing and distributing these constitutions, about which there was an intense interest and curiosity among statesmen, was one of his chief achievements as propagandist for the new American republic." - Streeter. He explained his motives in a 1783 Christmas day letter to Thomas Mifflin: "The extravagant Misrepresentations of our Political State in foreign Countries, made it appear necessary to give them better Information, which I thought could not be more effectually and authentically done, than by publishing a Translation into French, now the most general Language in Europe, of the Book of Constitutions, which had been printed by Order of Congress. This I accordingly go well done, and … I am persuaded that this Step will not only tend to promote the Emigration to our Country of substantial People from all Parts of Europe, by the numerous Copies I shall disperse, but will facilitate our future Treaties with foreign Courts, who could not before know what kind of Government and People they had to treat with." *** Howes C716. Sabin 16118. Streeter Sale II: 1035 (L-P issue). Livingston, Franklin and his Press at Passy, pp. 181-188.