Philopenes, ou du Régime des Pauvres.

A Paris, chez Regnard, Pankouke et Duchesne, 1764. 12mo. 1 leaf. 113 pages. Half calf, smooth spine decorated (period binding restored). First Edition. This political project to combat begging, written in the form of a dialogue, was published at the same time as other works on the same subject (such as Turmeau de la Morandière's "Police sur les Mendians"). In addition to the original nature of its proposals, which included the imprisonment of beggars, its particularity lies in the fact that it was written by Sidoine Séguier de Saint-Brisson (1738-1773), a young cavalry captain who was one of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's most exalted disciples. Such was his adoration for the philosopher that he came to want to apply his precepts to the letter, and entered into a regular correspondence with Rousseau that more than once embarrassed the master in the face of his panegyrist's excessive zeal. "Among the works describing more effective forms of aid was a tract entitled Philopénès ("Friend of the Poor") that appeared in 1764, just as Laverdy's commission completed its law on vagabons, and was reviewed in the 'Jounal Oeconomique' in October 1764, along with Le Trosne's tract on mendicity and a commentary on the Declaration of 1764 on vagabonds, just promulgated" (McStay Adams). Text interspersed with later handwritten annotations (often critical) by "D.V.Bréhier" who signed on a flyleaf the date January 28, 1854. A good copy. Granier, Essai de bibliographie charitable (1891), 1325. Cf. McStay Adams, "Bureaucrats and Beggars: French Social Policy in the Age of the Enlightenment" (1990), p.46.