267 - [SATIRE]. [REGIMENT OF THE CALOTTE]. Memoirs to Serve as a History of the Calotte.

[SATIRE]. [REGIMENT OF THE CALOTTE]. Memoirs to Serve as a History of the Calotte. In Moropolis (Fictitious address: Switzerland or Holland), Published by Momus, 1732. In-12 (14 x 8.5 cm), red half-basane, plain spine. 19th-century binding. Endpapers replaced. 4 ff. 192–156–161 pp. Slight rubbing. Provenance: copy belonging to the caricaturist Alfred Le Petit (handwritten bookplate). Second edition, expanded with a third part, of this work, which was first published in Basel in 1725. A collection of satirical pieces. “Le Régiment de la calotte” was the name of the Brotherhood of Fools. It was founded during the reign of Louis XIV. Its purpose was to correct social mores, to reform fashionable style by ridiculing it, and to establish a counter-court to that of the Académie Française. The principal authors were Abbé Desfontaines, Gacon, Piron, Grécourt, and others. They attacked figures in power—such as Louis XV and Marie Leczinska—as well as the episcopate, members of the judiciary, and financiers, not to mention men of letters. The “Régiment” had also—and above all—declared a veritable war to the death against the Académie Française. Two additional volumes were published in 1754.