457 - [ARGENSON (René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d’)]. *Les Loisirs d’un ministre, ou Essais dans le goût de ceux de Montagne* [sic], composed in 1736. Liège, Plomteux, 1787.

[ARGENSON (René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d’)]. *Les Loisirs d’un ministre, ou Essais dans le goût de ceux de Montagne* [sic], composed in 1736. Liège, Plomteux, 1787. 2 in-8 volumes, [2]-VIII-230 pp.; [3] ff., 231 pp. Half tan calf, smooth spine with gold thread, red title page (contemporary binding). Caps, joints, and corners worn. Second edition of this collection of political, moral, and literary reflections, first published in Amsterdam in 1785 in a small print run for the author’s close associates. Composed in 1736 by the Marquis d’Argenson (1694–1757), who would later become Louis XV’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and published by his son, the Marquis de Paulmy, these essays offer a vivid portrait of 18th-century society, blending philosophical reflections, portraits of contemporaries, historical anecdotes, and literary criticism. Of particular note is a delightful passage devoted to bibliophiles and rare books (Volume II, pp. 151–154), in which the author pokes fun at collectors willing to spend extravagant sums on works whose language they sometimes do not even understand. Copies of this edition contain two title pages per volume, one dated Liège, 1787, and the other Amsterdam, 1785.