A gold and enamel Royal presentation snuff box, Gabriel-Raoul Morel, Paris, circa 1822

The presentation inscription reads: Donnée par le Roi / à Mr. de Lacretelle jeune / 1822

The French royalist historian and journalist, Jean Charles Dominique de Lacretelle (1766-1855), was called ‘jeune’ to distinguish him from his elder brother Pierre, a lawyer and politician who had been elected to the Constituent Assembly during the Revolution. Lacretelle le jeune belonged to the same party as his brother, who summoned him to Paris in 1787, where both were members of the Club de Feuillants, a political party that had emerged during the French Revolution. As the presentation of the present lot demonstrates, Lacretelle the younger was a member of the group of moderate constitutional monarchist party members who sought to preserve the position of the king. The party was split between those and the radical Jacobins on the left, from which the more moderate wing split in 1791.

Lacretelle le jeune also worked as the private secretary for the social reformer François Alexandre Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (1747-1827). In 1809, he was appointed professor of history at the Faculté des Lettres, and two years later he became a member of the Académie Française. Lacretelle le jeune published extensively on history of the French Revolution, the Restauration and the Empire, and remained a keen royalist and monarchist throughout his life.