85 - Vendée - OURLIAC (Édouard). *Contes du Bocage*, preceded by a historical account of the early wars in the Vendée. Paris, Jacques Lecoffre, 1856.

Vendée - OURLIAC (Édouard). *Contes du Bocage*, preceded by a historical account of the early wars in the Vendée. Paris, Jacques Lecoffre, 1856. In-12, full brown shagreen, decorated ribbed spine, gilt title, triple gilt fillet framing with corner fleurons on the covers, “Maison des Oiseaux” bookplate on the front cover, gilt edges (contemporary binding). Spine slightly sun-faded; minute areas of wear or rubbing on the second cover. Engraved frontispiece. Price tag from the Ladies’ Boarding School of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, known as the “Maison des Oiseaux.” The “Couvent des Oiseaux,” located at 84 Rue de Sèvres in Paris, was a private mansion dating from 1775, used as a prison during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, then as a girls’ boarding school from 1818 to 1904 and home to the Académie Matisse in 1908 and 1909, before being completely demolished in 1909. In 1785, its owner, Pierre de Mory, former chief cashier of the Compagnie des Indes, had set up numerous aviaries there. Transformed into a prison during the Reign of Terror, Les Oiseaux was considered a “paradise of captivity” (Jules Michelet described it as “one of the pleasant prisons of Paris, where a stay was a guarantee against the guillotine”). The Canonesses of Saint Augustine of the Congregation of Our Lady purchased it in 1823 to turn it into a school.