197 - [MANUSCRIPT] DUPONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre-Samuel. Memoirs on the Life and Works of Mr. Turgot, Minister of State.

[MANUSCRIPT] DUPONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre-Samuel. Memoirs on the Life and Works of Mr. Turgot, Minister of State. A rare contemporary manuscript (1781) of the very first biography of Turgot, written in the same year of his death prior to its first publication, serving as the original source for all subsequent biographies. No place, no publisher, 1781. 2 parts in 1 in-8 volume (200 x 170 mm), paperback, with a blue temporary cover bearing a label on the spine to which cut-out printed letters have been pasted to form the title “Sur la vie de de M. Turgot” (the “de” and “la” are missing). 1 unnumbered leaf (title page), 192 pp., 2 unnumbered leaves (table of contents and blank page); 334 pp., 1 unnumbered leaf (table of contents). Worn cover with small tears at the margins; the front cover has been reattached at two points to the title page (resulting in two tears on the inner margin of the title page). Page corners are dog-eared and slightly worn, a few rare foxing spots, marginal water stains on a few leaves in the second part, ink slightly faded in places. A rare manuscript written one year before the official publication. The first part, recounting Turgot’s youth and his tenure as intendant in Limousin, is written in a deliberate hand; the second part, devoted to his tenure as Minister of Finance and economic reforms, features a significantly more fluid, rapid, and slender cursive script, revealing a lively and spontaneous flow of the pen. The manuscript includes footnotes and features, on the reverse of the second title page, the same epigraph as that of the original edition, which was printed the following year, in 1782, under the fictitious address of Philadelphia (Paris, Barrois l’aîné, 2 volumes in-4). Written immediately after the minister’s death in March 1781, this biography was undertaken by Pierre-Samuel Dupont de Nemours (1739–1817) at the direct request of the Controller General’s family (the Marquis Turgot and the Duchess of Saint-Aignan). A physiocratic economist and disciple of Quesnay, Dupont de Nemours was Turgot’s true “right-hand man” and éminence grise at the Ministry of Finance (1774–1776), accompanying him in his major reforms (freedom of grain trade, abolition of corvée labor and guilds) before sharing in his disgrace and exile. This manuscript is the definitive historical and factual source on Turgot’s life. Originally conceived to provide the necessary material for the historical eulogy delivered by Dupuy at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1782, the text was subsequently published to compensate for the omissions and inevitable reservations of the official speech. Benefiting from a twenty-year close relationship with the minister, direct access to the deceased’s papers (previously sorted by Malesherbes), and remarkable accuracy, these Memoirs served as an indispensable foundation for all subsequent biographers. Dupont de Nemours ultimately included this seminal text as the first volume of his monumental nine-volume edition of Turgot’s *Œuvres* (1807–1811). [Schelle, *Œuvres de Turgot*, 2018, pp. 15–24]. A remarkable, complete manuscript that is generally in fresh condition and highly legible.