11 - COLLECTION OF VAUDEVILLES, PARODIES, AND ROMANTIC ARIAS (Volumes 1–7). Manuscript from the second half of the 18th century on paper, bound in seven in-8 volumes (193 x 127 mm), with period bindings in red morocco leather, gilded fillets on the covers with a coat of arms in the center, smooth spines divided into panels adorned with gilded fillets, scrolls, and fleurons, endpapers of gilded paper decorated with an embossed floral design painted red, gilt edges, clasps.

COLLECTION OF VAUDEVILLES, PARODIES, AND ROMANTIC ARIAS (Volumes 1–7). Manuscript from the second half of the 18th century on paper, bound in seven in-8 volumes (193 x 127 mm), with period bindings in red morocco leather, gilded fillets on the covers with a coat of arms in the center, smooth spines divided into panels adorned with gilded fillets, scrolls, and fleurons, endpapers of gilded paper decorated with an embossed floral design painted red, gilt edges, clasps. Collation. Volume I: title page and 200 numbered pages, 56 pieces; Volume II: title page and 177 pages (numbered 1–174), 58 pieces; Volume III: title page and 196 numbered pages, 41 pieces; Volume IV: title page and 198 pages (numbered 1–197), 49 sheets; Volume V: title page and 202 numbered pages, 48 sheets; Volume VI: title page and 198 numbered pages, 47 sheets; Volume VII: title page and 182 pages (numbered 1 through 180), 31 pieces. A very beautiful handwritten collection, carefully calligraphied and embellished with numerous finely drawn ornaments in red and black ink, comprising 330 playful and gallant songs, some of which are licentious or imbued with a discreet, elegantly suggested eroticism. All are accompanied by their musical notation. The title of each volume is finely calligraphed in red and green and embellished with ornaments within a frame of multiple borders. Each page is surrounded by a double border of two lines with ornaments in the corners and along the sides. The texts are in black, the titles in red. Numerous red-and-black drop caps appear between the verses and at the end of the songs. Each volume includes a table of contents. This delightful manuscript, comprising texts of perfect uniformity—probably wholly or partly unpublished—was produced around 1770 for Henriette de Bourbon Condé (1725–1780), and was beautifully bound at the time in morocco leather bearing her coat of arms. Noteworthy on the bindings are the brass clasps—two per volume, all preserved—and the lovely endpapers of gilded paper featuring a beautiful floral design, embossed and painted in red (slightly oxidized). She was the illegitimate daughter of Louis Henri de Bourbon Condé (1692–1740), known as the Duke of Bourbon, who served as Prime Minister to Louis XV in the aftermath of the Regency, and of Armande Felice de La Porte Mazarin (1691–1729), a lady-in-waiting to the queen, who remained famous for her escapades during the Regency and was, for a time, the king’s mistress (as were three of her four sisters…), Henriette, born in 1725, was legitimized by letters patent in October 1739 and was then granted the title of Mademoiselle de Verneuil. The following year, she married Jean-Roger de la Guiche, Count of Sévignon (1719–1770), lieutenant general of the armies and commander-in-chief of the province of Burgundy. She died in 1780 at the Abbey of Beaumont-lès-Tours. This collection of gallant songs boasts a very appealing female provenance. Extremely rare: OHR (944) cites only one work that belonged to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, and that one is of a religious nature. Acquired by Émile Rossignol in 1963.