DESCARTES, René.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, & chercher la vérité dans les sciences. First edition of Descartes's magnum opus; an attractive copy from the library of distinguished 17th-century French bibliophile Louis Hesselin. Books from Hesselin's collection, which was celebrated by contemporaries for its particular focus on science, are extremely scarce in their distinctive armorial binding.Louis Treslon-Cauchon (1602-1662), born into a noble Champagne family, adopted the name Hesselin in 1626 to inherit his wealthy great-uncle's estate. He became conseiller du roi, maître de la chambre aux deniers, and, from 1655, surintendant des plaisirs du roi. Renowned as an art patron and collector, he was, in Bonnaffé's phrase, "a man of excellent taste, a person of fashion, the obligatory organiser of all parties".Hesselin's early collecting won contemporary admiration. In 1638 the mathematician Jean-François Niceron praised his cabinet as "the quintessence of all Parisian cabinets", singling out its exceptional mirrors, a remarkable mirror cabinet, paintings, sculpture, and scientific books. Little is known of his library beyond the bindings: his books bear his arms, and Bonnaffé notes that they are "rarely met with", generally in tortoiseshell calf with his coat of arms. Crèvecour describes the same quartered Cauchon–Hesselin arms and reports a possible contemporary attribution of the tooling to Labelle.Hesselin's townhouse on the Île Saint-Louis, designed by Le Vau and f

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