(Monroe, James)

Mémoires de Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, Principal Ministre de Henri-Le-Grand, Mis en ordre, avec des Remarques, Par M.L.D.L.D.L. Nouvelle édition, revue & corrigée. Londres [but Paris]: n.p., 1778

8 volumes, 12mo (6 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.; 165 x 90 mm).  Engraved frontispiece portrait, half-titles; dampstaining throughout each volume, occasionally strong, loss to lower corners of 2:K7,8 and 6:N7,8, a few short marginal tears (one touching text at 7:C4, cellotape repair to lower free endpaper of vol. 7.  Contemporary calf, spines gilt, marbled endpapers and edges; bindings very dry, craquelure on most spines and some boards with losses, joints and hinges cracked, repairs to some corners and edges. Housed in two grey linen folding cases, dark blue morocco spines, lettered gilt.

James Monroe (bookplate in each volume). Acquisition: William Reese

Gordon W. Jones, The Library of James Monroe, p. 59

8 volumes, 12mo (6 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.; 165 x 90 mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait, half-titles; dampstaining throughout each volume, occasionally strong, loss to lower corners of 2:K7,8 and 6:N7,8, a few short marginal tears (one touching text at 7:C4, cellotape repair to lower free endpaper of vol. 7. Contemporary calf, spines gilt, marbled endpapers and edges; bindings very dry, craquelure on most spines and some boards with losses, joints and hinges cracked, repairs to some corners and edges. Housed in two grey linen folding cases, dark blue morocco spines, lettered gilt.
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James Monroe's copy of Sully's Mémoires, edited by clergyman and historian Pierre Mathurin de l'Ecluse des Loges. Both Madison and Jefferson considered this book required reading for American statesmen, and with good reason. Sully, minister and counselor to Henri IV, was instrumental in restoring peace after the religious and civil wars and made significant contributions to nation-building. He introduced order into France's economic affairs, encouraged agriculture, urged the free circulation of produce, promoted stock-raising, built roads and bridges, and planned a system of canals. He also established a strong line of defense on French frontiers. He negotiated the treaty of peace in 1602; in 1603 he represented Henri IV at the court of James I of England; and throughout the reign, he helped suppress insurrections of the nobles.  In effect, Sully virtually transformed France between 1598 and 1610; his achievements benefited agricutlure and commerce, and reestablished foreign peace and internal order.

Monroe and Thomas Jefferson enjoyed a lifelong friendship that began when Monroe read law with Jefferson in 1780. Both were Francophiles and in 1784 Jefferson sold Monroe twenty-five duplicate French titles from his library (it did not include the Sully, however, which Monroe most likely obtained during his tenure as Minister to France from 1794 to 1796 or in early 1803). According to the catalogue of Monroe's library reconstructed by Gordon W. Jones, French books comprised almost a third of the library, which, according to Monroe's own estimate, approached nearly 3,000 volumes.

However, only a small number of volumes from Monroe's extensive library have survived, and of those remaining few bear his bookplate. Twenty-eight titles in fifty volumes that descended through the family are now housed at the Monroe Memorial Library in Fredericksburg but only a few of them, according to Jones, contain Monroe's bookplate. Jones has located two other books that belonged to Monroe at the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia. Three titles with Monroe's bookplate have appeared at auction in the past six years (one title incomplete).  Each volume of the present, complete set of Sully's Mémoires contains Monroe's bookplate, evoking Jefferson's early influence on Monroe as a book collector and recalling the future president's  service as a young diplomat.