Traité sur la Cavalerie
Paris: De l'Imprimerie de Guillaume Desprez, 1776. Item #06351
Drummond de Melfort's Traité sur la Cavalerie (1776)
The Definitive Eighteenth-Century Work on Cavalry Tactics, Dedicated to Louis XVI
DRUMMOND DE MELFORT, Louis Hector (Compte de). Traité sur la Cavalerie. Maréchal de Camp ès Armées du Roi, & Inspecteur-Général des Troupes-Légeres. Paris: De l'Imprimerie de Guillaume Desprez, 1776.
Two volumes: Text folio (18 3/4 x 12 1/4 inches; 476 x 311 mm.).
Atlas broadsheet (25 1/4 x 19 1/2 inches; 642 x 495 mm.).
Text: [iv], v-xx11, [2, list of subscribers], [1]-505, [2], [1, blank] pp. Engraved frontispiece by Ingouf l'aîné, title page with engraved vignette by Macret, dedication with engraved head-piece by Pruneau. Each part with three engraved vignettes (one by Macret and two by Louis-Nicolas Van Blaremberghe), two engraved tail-pieces by Pruneau and Macret, one engraving by Van Blaremberghe at end, and eleven large tactical plates of which seven are double-page and one folding. Minimal light marginal staining to a few leaves, overall very clean and fresh.
Atlas: Thirty-two double-page or folding engraved plates. **In addition there is a duplicate of plate XII and three additional engraved plates of which two are double-page folding.
The text volume has been rebound ca. 1980 in quarter brown calf over marbled boards, smooth spine decoratively ruled and lettered in gilt, plain white endpapers, all edges uncut. Aside from a small light stain on the last three, the plates clean and fresh.
The atlas volume is bound in contemporary quarter brown calf over patterned boards. Spine ruled in gilt with two later morocco labels lettered in gilt. Spine ends neatly repaired.
An excellent complete copy.
Dedicated to Louis XVI, the work is illustrated with thirty-two (plus the additional four) magnificent, large-format plates depicting every aspect of cavalry training - from the schooling of the individual horseman and the art of dressage to the deployment of squadrons and complex tactical manoeuvres. Each figure, horse, and movement is rendered with remarkable precision, set within natural landscape backgrounds that convey both realism and grandeur. Most plates bear finely engraved descriptive cartouches that complement the detailed explanations provided in the accompanying text volume.
Louis-Hector, Comte de Drummond de Melfort (1721-1788), was descended from Maurice Drummond, youngest son of André, King of Hungary, and founder of the noble Scottish Drummond family. Maurice settled in England with Edgar Atheling to escape William the Conqueror’s persecutions; his sister Margaret, later Queen of Scotland, rewarded Maurice with estates and the title of Seneschal of Lennox.
Louis-Hector began his military career under Marshal Maurice de Saxe, serving as aide-de-camp at the Battle of Fontenoy (May 11, 1745). After the war, he used the influence of his uncle, Lord Keith, Marshal of Scotland, to study Prussian tactics under Frederick the Great, adopting Frederick’s maxim that “war should be a meditation and peace an exercise.”
Drawing on experience in Flanders, Germany, and Italy - where he commanded light cavalry - he published Essai sur la cavalerie légère (1748) and later Traité sur la Cavalerie (1776). The latter was influential enough that its maneuvers were incorporated into French military ordinances of 1788, 1791, and 1793. In it, he also introduced the concept of “flying artillery,” or horse artillery, which would contribute greatly to France’s military triumphs after 1792.
Mennessier I, 408; Brunet II-842; Nathalie Lemoine-Bouchard, L.-N. van Blarenberghe et le Traité sur la cavalerie de Drummond de Melfort, Histoire de l'art, 1999, pp. 57-69; Not in Mellon.
Price: $7,500.00