Against Terror and Socialism: French Revolutionary Publication in Arabic

(Cambacérès, Jean-Jacques-Régis de) / Langlès, Louis (ed.). [Majma' al-millah al-ma'ruf bi-ism Qunfansiyun Nasiyunal ila qawm al-Faransawi]. Adresse de la Convention Nationale au peuple français, décrétee dans la séance du 18 Vendémiaire.

€ 4,500.00

Unique Arabic-French edition, officially issued by the French government press, of the famous address given before the National Convention on 18 Vendémiaire III (9 October 1794). In the aftermath of the fall of Robespierre, the statesman Jean Cambacérès condemns at once those who "speak incessantly of blood and of scaffolds" (the Jacobins) and those who threaten private property (Babeuf's Socialists).

"Une impression regardée chez toutes les nations, comme un précieux et curieux monument de l'Art Typographique jaillit ... de l'imprimerie de la jeune République Francaise le 18 Vendemiaire de l'an III!" (Balagna, p. 122). The date is given in the style of the French revolutionary calendar as well as in the year of the Hijra, but not in common era style. Translated by Pierre J. Ruffin, secretary to the French ambassador in Constantinople, and printed by the Imprimerie de la République with the elegant Arabic types cut nearly two centuries earlier by Savary de Brèves. Four years later, the French government would introduce letterpress printing to the Arabic world when Napoleon's invading forces set up the Imprimérie Orientale in Cairo.