115 - DRUMMOND de MELFORT (Louis-Hector).

DRUMMOND de MELFORT (Louis-Hector). Treatise on Cavalry by Count Drummond de Melfort, Brigadier General of the King’s Armies, & Inspector General of Light Troops. Paris, Desprez, 1776. Large folio, xxii, (2), 505, (2) pp. Havana calfskin, decorated ribbed spine, title label, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, gilt coat of arms on the covers, and the ex-libris of the Royal Polish Regiment on the front cover (contemporary binding). Binding restored. Water stains and wormholes. Beautiful frontispiece engraved by Ingouf the Elder depicting Louis XVI reviewing the troops on horseback; title vignette by Macret; dedication vignette by Pruneau. Illustrations by Ingouf, Pruneau, and Van Blarenberghe; 11 plates by Dupuis, most of them spread across two pages; beautiful end-paper. First edition of one of the most spectacular works on cavalry. Without the 32-plate in-plano atlas, which is often missing. (Mennessier de la Lance, I, 408; Cohen, 326.) Bearing the coat of arms of Louis-Marie de MAILLY, Marquis de Mailly and d’Haucourt (1744–1792), field marshal of the Royal-Poland Regiment in the 1770s at the time of this edition’s publication; it could therefore be a gift copy from the regiment intended for him. He was appointed governor of Abbeville in 1780 and promoted to field marshal in 1781. In 1789, the Duke of Mailly was elected deputy of the nobility to the Estates-General by the bailiwick of Péronne. (O.H.R. 2045, with a seal bearing similar attributes.)