Antigone. L'Homme Sans Nom.

Paris:: H.-L. Delloye, 1841., 1841. 8vo. 442, [6], 36, [4], 30, [6], 44, [4], 250, 54 pp. Occasional scattered foxing, not affecting legibility. Quarter gilt-stamped red leather over red marbled paper-backed boards, all edges marbled; cover edges and corners gently rubbed. Near fine. According to a pencil note on the free rear endpaper, the ink signature and inscription below is that of Alexis Guignard, Comte de Saint-Priest (1805-51), a French diplomat and historian of the Academie Francais. This work contains two stories: Antigone and L'Homme Sans Nom. Antigone, a re-working of Sophocles' original story, achieved popularity in France because it was (truncated) seen as a reflection of the suffering of Louis XIV's daughter, the Duchesse d'Angpuleme, but Ballanche's actual muse was Juliette Recamier, a beautiful and brilliant Parisian who hosted a rather famous salon. In her, Ballanche perceived "a kindred unhappiness." Her "incapacity for happiness, he argued, is a sign of the awareness of a fallen creature of its divine origin and its nostalgia for a celestial home" (McCalla 49). He saw her beauty as a reflection of her moral perfection. L'Homme Sans Nom centers on a "nameless man" who is on the council that votes for the regicide of Louis XIV in 1793; wary of inflaming political public opinion because of the recent assassination of the Duc de Berry by a Bonapartist, Ballanche limited the first, 1820 edition of the story to a run of 100 copies. He intended his new work "as advice for the King and a small circle of political leaders," rather than the general populace" (McCalla 78). Ballanche was a French philosopher, who favored a view of history in which mankind achieves "progress through ordeals." Essentially, "a past epoch could possess its own rightness and legitimacy, even as it had lost the right to continue," which he described in his work Palingenesie (Wikip.). "He is considered by some French critics as a great writer and profound thinker, but by others his writings are regarded as mystical and obscure" (Thomas 253). McCalla, Arthur. A Romantic Historiosophy: the Philosophy of History of Pierre-Simon Ballanche. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1998; Thomas, J. "Ballanche, Pierre-Simon." Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography and Mythology, Part One. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1871. (Inventory #: S11031)