228 - [MILITARIA - HISTORY]. Daily Account of the Siege of the City of Luxembourg, Brought Under the King’s Authority.

[MILITARIA - HISTORY]. Daily Account of the Siege of the City of Luxembourg, Brought Under the King’s Authority. Besançon, Louis Rigoine, 1684. In-8, full ivory vellum, exposed stitching. 72 pages, title medallion, headband, initial letter. Velin slightly soiled and warped; tear in the margin of the title page and p. 5; brown stain on pp. 45–48. A rare first edition printed in Besançon immediately after the city’s capture in June 1684. The journal recounts, day by day, the famous 1684 siege of Luxembourg led by the armies of Louis XIV, from April 28 to June 4, 1684. During this major operation of the War of the Reunions, Marshal de Créqui and military engineer Vauban forced the surrender of this strategic stronghold, which was then under Spanish rule. The account describes the trenches, the relentless bombardments, the assaults, and the negotiations that led to the surrender of the garrison of the Principality of Chimay. The book concludes with a precise list of the names of French officers killed or wounded during the siege. The choice of Besançon as the place of printing was no coincidence: Franche-Comté had just been permanently annexed to France by the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678, and Louis XIV had chosen Besançon as the province’s new capital. This copy is preserved in its original full vellum binding from the period.