£400
FIRST EDITION, 4 vols, 8vo, pp. [iv], xxxviii, 374, [2] + frontispece; [iv], 363, [3]; [iv], 333, [1]; [iv], 337, [3]. Contemporary half sheep, sprinkled beige paper boards, spines divided by gilt rules, tan and olive textured paper labels. A few minor spots. Extremities slightly rubbed, corners of a couple of labels chipped.
The first appearance of this significant translation, the only 18th-century French text of Thucydides and the most authoritative modern translation since Hobbes's English version of 1629. Lévesque, a historian of Russia and France, finds in the ancient source vital lessons for France, then in the midst of the Revolution, and his preface argues for Thucydides as the most political of historians and a source of practical advice for contemporary readers.
