[SAINT-PIERRE (Charles-Irénée Castel de)].

Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe. Utrecht, Antoine Schouten, 1713. 2 volumes in-12, fawn calf, spine decorated, red edges (Binding of the time). Very rare first edition. The abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658-1743) wrote no less than four drafts of this text, printed in a small edition, before publishing this final state, which he therefore had printed without an author's name and under a false address. In this work, the economist and philosopher of the Enlightenment envisages the constitution of a European Diet, sitting in Utrecht, and of common jurisdictions bringing together the representatives of twenty-four European sovereigns. These power brokers would act as arbitrators and mediators in the event of political and commercial disputes between countries. Armed intervention was foreseen only against a member who refused the arbitration rendered by the Diet. The idea of perpetual peace, at first considered utopian, was revived in the second half of the century by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. The work is decorated with an allegorical frontispiece depicting King Henry IV; the portrait of the author by Scotin is not found in this copy. Small loss at the head, ink stains on the boards, marginal wetness on some leaves of volume I, some leaves yellowed. Goldsmiths, n°5071 - Einaudi, n°933 - En français dans le texte, n°137.