120 - [EDUCATION - NESMOND]. Rules of Conduct for a Young Lady Entering Society.

[EDUCATION - NESMOND]. Rules of Conduct for a Young Lady Entering Society. A 1700 manual on women’s education, attributed to Madame de Nesmond and complete with its printing permit issued by the censor d’Argenson. No place, no publisher, 1700. In-16, brown calfskin, ribbed spine, blind-stamped fillet framing the covers, gilt interior roulette repeated on the edges. 59 pp. Corners and edges rubbed with tears in the cap bands, rare foxing. A manual of devotion and etiquette intended for young women of the nobility or the upper middle class under the Ancien Régime. Pierre Collet, in his *Treatise on the Duties of Religious Life* (1765), attributes it to Madame de Nesmond, Marie-Jeanne de Miramion (1646–1711), who married Guillaume de Nesmond (1627–1693), a judge at the Parliament of Paris, in 1661. The last page bears the printing permit issued on February 10, 1700, by Marc-René de Voyer d’Argenson (1652–1721), “Maître de Paris” and head of the censorship office, who ruled the royal censorship with an iron fist. Nothing could be printed or circulated legally in Paris without his direct approval. A fine copy in a contemporary binding.