Kings MS 250-251

'TRAITÉ DES SIEGES, sur lattaque et la deffense des places de Guerre, par feu Monsieur Sébastien Le Prestre, Seigneur] de Vauban, Marechal de France, Ingenieur General, decede le [30] Mars 1707, contenant ce qu'il a pû recueillir et imaginer de mieux pendant plus de cinquante ans qu'il a pratiqué la fortification ' : Vauban's two treatises on the attack and defence of fortified places. Two volumes, vol. ii containing the Défense. The MS. purports to contain the treatises as written, the former in 1704, with dedication to [Louis,] Duc de Bourgogne, the latter in 1706-1707 just before Vauban's death. The bibliography of the work however is complicated. The first full edition is that of 1829, the Attaque ed. by Augozat, the Défense by Valazé, for though De Hondt's edition (Hague, 1737) gives the substance of the Attaque it substitutes for Vauban's Défense a little tract written by Guillaume de La Fon, Seigneur Des Houlières, in 1675. The Leyden edition of 1740 is still less satisfactory, giving for the Attaque a treatise written indeed by Vauban, but in 1669, and superseded by the later work. Jombert's edition (1769) and that of Foissac (1795) also give a garbled text, and the present MS., though nearer to the MSS. used by the 1829 editors, is open to some suspicion, as the peroration (vol, ii, f. 179 b) seems to be taken from Des Houlières, and there are considerable differences in detail and order in the treatise on the Défense (for another text see below, King's 255). Vol. i has no plans; vol. ii has nine (ff. 186-202), whereof the first (unnumbered) corresponds to feuille 5 of the Atlas of the 1829 edition, and the others (numbered as feuilles 1-8) to feuilles 6-8, 12-16, ib. Feuilles 1 and 8 of the MS. (ff. 188, 202) are plans of actual sieges, viz. Ath and Menin, in Sept. and July, 1706 respectively.

Paper; ff. 166, 202. Quarto. 10³/₄ in. x 8³/₄ in. XVIII cent. Mottled calf binding, royal arms added.