(BIGOT) DE MOROGUES, (P.M.S.) Recherche des causes de la richesse et de la misère des peuples civilisés. Application des principes de l’économie politique et des calculs de la statistique au gouvernement de l’Etat, dans le but de trouver les moyens d’assurer sa stabilité et sa force, en assurant le bonheur du peuple et sa tranquillité. Par le Bon. de Morogues ……. (Paris), Lith. Th. Delarue, (1834). [6], 649, [1] pp. 4to. Modern half blue morocco, marbled boards, gilt lettering to spine, (Atelier Laurenchet), original front cover preserved.

€ 1250

Kress C.3672; Goldsmiths 28401; Coquelin & Guillaumin, p. 177; Granier, Bibliographie Charitable, 1412; not in Dada (listing three other works but not this one); Blanqui, ii, p. 406; not in Einaudi; not in Mattioli; Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de la Compagnie d’Assurances sur la Vie “Utrecht”, ii, p. 1083. The only edition, lithographed from the manuscript and done in 100 copies only, this work is extremely rare. Bigot considered luxury and the inequality of wealth as necessary causes and by-products of modern civilization, but he also recognized the negative effects of industrial capitalism and pleaded for redistribution of the most extreme wealth, poor relief and the foundation of agricultural colonies. His economic views were based on his moral and religious beliefs of which the improvement of the conditions of the most depraved formed an essential part. The work is an important source for the study of poverty and mendicity in France. Includes quite some statistical information on the conditions of the rural population and labourers, and contains important chapters on the negative effects of industrialization. Pierre-Marie-Sebastien, Baron de Bigot de Morogues (1776-1840), agronomist, philantropist, political writer, and member of the Chamber of Peers. Destined for a career in the Navy, a family-tradition, Bigot’s future was first altered through the coming of the Revolution, and then through his marriage with Claudinne de Montaudouin. His wife held one of the largest domains in Sologne, the Chateau de la Source, and Bigot became an agronomist. For the next forty years he wrote numerous articles and pamphlets on specific agricultural improvements. Both on his own estates and in local agricultural societies he encouraged the use of new techniques to better the lot of the local peasantry. More broadly, Bigot was interested in the social, economic, and moral conditions of the poor. He emphasized the need for society to educate the young in basic skills so that they could function better in the modern world …. Bigot saw luxery and the inequality of wealth as necessary causes and by-products of modern civilization, but he also recognized the negative effects of industrial capitalism. Economic progress might raise the level of civilization in both the arts and morality, but something had to be done to help the poorer classes who frequently suffered under such progress (Historical Dictionary of France from the 1815 Restauration tot the Second Empire, vol. i, pp. 106-108.) Bigot’s works were part of a wider movement represented by authors such as Villermé, Villeneuve Bargemont, and Buret, informing an ever-increasing public about what was happening in the big industrial towns. (…..) But all recognized that poverty was keeping step with capitalist concentration, and that it was poverty of an entirely new character, utterly different from that of previous periods; all condemned the idea of unbridled liberalism and drew attention to the need for social legislation (Jacques Droz, Europe between Revolutions, 1815-1848, p. 63). – The original front cover laid down, with some spots and a bit dirty, small repair causing loss of a few letter in the dedication (see below), title-page not quite clean and with some small loss in blank upper margin, a bit stained in gutter towards the end. Copy with a three-line handwritten dedication on the front cover by the author to Louis-René Villermé.