CLERC, Nicolas-Gabriel.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Yu le Grand et Confucius, Histoire Chinoise ("Yu the Great and Confucius - Chinese History"). First edition of this physiocratic work representative of the turn towards Confucianism in 18th-century French intellectual circles. The author saw China's legendary emperor Yu as a paragon of good governance who Europe would do well to emulate.Nicolas-Gabriel Clerc (1726-1798) was a physician, historian, and tutor to the Grand Duke of Russia (later Czar Paul I), to whom the book is dedicated. Invoking Quesnay, Clerc presents Yu as someone who governed virtuously and by extension made his subjects virtuous - a pointed lesson to the future ruler about the nature of kingship and the secret to socio-economic development. During the French Revolution, revolutionaries such as Louis Antoine de Saint-Just were drawn to Clerc's argument that "natural law was the only authentic foundation for all political order and legislation" (Edelstein).Yu le Grande's physiocracy was predicated on a good amount of intellectual distortion. "What is striking about this book is the frank manner in which Clerc admits to fictionalizing Chinese history" (Mungello, p. 107). Most blatantly, he describes Yu as Confucius's contemporary, using Yu's actions to gild the Confucian lily.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.