Lettres sur le commerce des grains.

[MIRABEAU (Victor Riquetti, Marquis de).]

Lettres sur le commerce des grains.

First edition. 12mo. xii, 324 pp., woodcut device to title page, woodcut head and tail pieces throughout. Contemporary mottled calf, spine with five single raised bands, second panel lettered in gilt on red morocco label, the rest with elaborate floral gilt stamps, marbled endpapers, red edges (evidence of small label clumsily removed from front pastedown, neat contemporary ownership inscription to verso of front free endpaper, contents otherwise generally clean and fresh; some discreet restoration work to head of rear joint, an excellent copy). Amsterdam & se trouve à Paris, Chez Desaint, 1768.

£1,200.00

An important exposition of the physiocratic argument for the total deregulation of the grain trade in the ancien régime by Victor Riquetti, marquis de Mirabeau (1715-1789), one of the school’s earliest and most dedicated proponents.

Throughout the 1760s the physiocrats had successfully influenced government policy in favour of liberalising the trade in grain. However, a series of subsistence crises towards the end of the decade culminated with a series of popular uprisings in 1768 against the high price of corn. The physiocrats continued to promote deregulation of the grain trade, but ‘were accused of having contributed to the worsening of the living conditions of the French people, for whom corn was the most important consumption good’ (New Palgrave).

Kress, 6579; Goldsmiths’, 10431.

Stock No.

247950

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Lettres sur le commerce des grains.

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