Valérie

Paris: N. Giguet and L.-G. and J.-F. Michaud for H. Henrichs, 1803. Sheep-backed speckled boards, flat spine, gilt-lettered title. First Edition of this semi-autobiographical epistolary novel by one of the leading architects of the Holy or Grand Alliance, which held sway in Europe from 1815 to 1853. Born in Riga to a wealthy family with access to the court of Catherine of Russia, the author married a local noble and diplomat much her senior. She sought relief from their distant relations in imagining her husband as the lover described in the letters published here, a sentimental romance. Her subsequent profound religious conversion opened the door to apocalyptic faith and intimacy with Tsar Alexander I, whom she prompted to initiate the Grand Alliance. She was known for her wild expenditures and charismatic proselytizing and is the subject of more than a dozen books. In good condition.
¶Ungherini, Manuel de bibliographie...des femmes célèbres II(2): 110; Giraud, Nouvelle bibliographie du roman epistolaire 1804/5a.