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On the influences of the stars, comets, perpetuel motion machine, and new inventions

LE ROYER, Jacques.
(Oeuvres). Le bastion universel - L'art des arts et des sciences ou des nouvelles inventions - Le moevement perpetuel hydraulique - La véritable cause des cometes - Traité des influences divisé en deux parties. Premiere partie des influences des cieux, & des astres. ... Deuxie'me partie des influences, & vertus occultes des estres terrestres.

With woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials and many woodcut borders, 5 half page and 10 smaller woodcut diagrams in the text, depicting arrangements for chemical experiments, diagrams, astrological symbols, spheres, etc.

Avranches, Nicolas Motays, 1677. 8vo. Contemporary full brown mottled calf, sprinkled edges. With woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials and many woodcut borders, 5 half page and 10 smaller woodcut diagrams in the text, depicting arrangements for chemical experiments, diagrams, astrological symbols, spheres, etc. (6), 3-112, 109- 364 pp.

Original edition of the collected works of Jacques Le Royer, sieur de la Blinière who was born in 1625 in the surroundings of Mortain, in Manche. He was a lawyer at the Parlement of Rouen, judge and counsellor and adviser of the King. The different works contained in this work were partly printed before as separate editions.
In 1660 Le Royer had presented to the King a little treatise: Des causes du flux de la mer, des vents et des fièvres (Paris, Joannes de la Caille, 1660; a Latin edition appeared in the same year). Since the author's proposals were ignored, owing to their surprising nature, as the author thought, Le Royer next proposed in 1662 the installation of his perpetual motion hydraulic machine to work the fountains at Versailles. He published his ideas in 1665.
On the occasion of a visit of the Duc de Roquelaure to Avranches in 1674 he prepared a little work, Le baston universel. When the visit had been cancelled, Le Royer had had this printed and had sent it to the Duke together with a Traité de l'art des arts et des sciences to be presented to the Dauphin. Still receiving no marks of royal favour, the author now had reprinted in the present edition his Le bastion, L'art des arts, and Le mouvement perpetuel hydraulique, together with La véritable cause des comètes and his Traité des influences, the latter dedicated to Monseigneur de Beauvais. He laid the book before his sovereign, still harping on the theme that the installation of his perpetual motion hydraulic machine at Versailles would provide four times as much water as the present machinery at one fourth the cost.
At the end, on pp. 360-364 is the "Explication des figures qui sont au couvercle de ce livre". Some copies of these complete works of Le Royer are bound in a very interesting and unusual binding presented as an integral part of the book and dedicated to the King.

In our copy the title and dedication of the Traité des influences (pp. 109-59) are misbound at the beginning:
p. (1): Title of the Traité des influences divisé en deux parties : (Partie 1.) Des influences des cieux, & des astres … (Ch. 1) Des influences des cieux, & des astres en general; (Ch. 2) De la domination particuliere des sept planetes; (Partie 2) Des influences, & vertus occultes des estres terrestres … (Ch. 1) De l'aimant. (Ch. 2) De l'inclination des arbres vers les metaux, minereaux, & les eaux. (Avranches, Nicolas Motays, 1677). [text on p. 109-359].
p.( 2): blank.
p. (3-6): Dédication à Monseigneur de Beauvais of the Traité des influences.
p. (3)-38: Le bastion universel (présenté à Monsieur le duc de Roquelaure).
p. 39-42: Dédication à Monsieur le Dauphin.
p. 43-84: L'art des arts et des sciences ou des nouvelles inventions.
p. 85-86: Dédication à Monseigneur le duc de Montausier, gouverneur pour le Roy en … Normandie.
p. 87-96: Le mouvement perpetuel hydraulique, ou l'élévation de l'eau d'elle mesme.
p. 97-111: La véritable cause des cometes.
p. 112: blank.
p. 109-359: Text of the Traité des influences divisé en deux parties.
p. 360-364: Explication des figures qui sont au couvercle de ce livre.

Good copy of this rare work.- (Erased ownership's entry and annotation on the title; some occasional soiling).

Brunet IV, 1439; L. Desgraves, Répertoire bibliographique des livres imprimés en France au XVIIe siècle. Tom. XII: Normandie 1 (... Avranches ...) (Baden-Baden 1985) [=BBA 102], p. 105, nr. 19; not in Houzeau-Lancaster; not in Caillet; NUC lists only one incomplete and mutilated copy; cf. Howard M. Nixon, Broxburne Library. Styles and designs of bookbindings (1956), 79.

Related Subjects: Astronomy & Cosmography Chemistry Engineering Physics Science

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