VAN EYCK (Maximilian Emmanuel Franz). Manuscript... - Lot 21

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VAN EYCK (Maximilian Emmanuel Franz). Manuscript... - Lot 21 - Osenat

VAN EYCK (Maximilian Emmanuel Franz). Manuscript entitled "Register of my correspondence as well with the Elector of Bavaria as with his minister, all other persons, relative to the business negotiations of which I was in charge, during all the time that I was employed at the Court of France, with the character of extraordinary envoy of His Alt. Ser[enissi]me Electoral". 1755-1776. 36 vol. in-folio, marbled fawn calf with smooth spines decorated with grotesque semis or similar, cherry and plum or bottle title-pieces, gilt edges, counterpanes and endpapers lined with dominoté paper with gilt starred semis; some disparities in the decorations and title-pieces (period binding, except for the last 7 volumes in bindings rebound in the modern period in beautiful imitation of the old). EXCEPTIONAL REGISTER OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE, ACTIVE AND PASSIVE, OF THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ELECTOR OF BAVIERE TO THE COURT OF FRANCE. A DOCUMENT OF A KIND VERY RARELY KEEPED IN PRIVATE HANDS, it contains almost all the diplomatic dispatches exchanged from 1755 to 1776 between the Court of Bavaria and its representative at the French Court, Count Van Eyck. They are arranged in chronological order, with a table at the end of each volume (except for the last 5). However, the manuscript was interrupted in 1776, either because the copyists had stopped their work or because the leaves devoted to the last months had been lost. AN ALLY OF FRANCE, THE BAVARIA OF MAXIMILIAN III JOSEPH (1727-1777). Main electorate of the Empire, Bavaria had been in the hands of the younger branch of the Wittelsbachs since the 14th century. Maximilian III Joseph came to power in 1745, and ruled according to the principles of "enlightened despotism. However, he had to face the heavy dispute between the Houses of Habsburg-Lorraine and Wittelsbach: on the one hand, his father had dared to run for the imperial crown, and on the other, Vienna had long-standing ambitions for the Electorate. The tensions would lead in 1778, after the death of Maximilian III Joseph, to the War of the Bavarian Succession. In this tense context, aggravated by the Franco-Austrian rapprochement of 1755-1757, the traditional alliance with France appeared more necessary than ever to the Elector, and the role of his representative in Paris all the more essential. NEARLY 22 YEARS IN POST IN PARIS, MAXIMILIAN-EMANUEL-FRANZ VAN EYCK (1711-1777) had been born in a Dutch family and had first been employed by Spain. In 1743 he entered the service of Jean-Theodore de Wittelsbach, Cardinal of Bavaria and Prince-Bishop of Liège, and was recommended by him to his nephew, the Elector of Bavaria, who appointed him "envoy extraordinary" to the French Court in February 1755. He remained in Paris until his death in October 1777, staying from 1759 at the Hôtel de Beauvais, in the present Rue François-Miron: it was there that he received the young Mozart and his father Leopold, from November 1763 to April 1764 (Count Van Eyck was in fact the son-in-law of the chancellor of the Salzburg Court). Count Van Eyck's main correspondents were the Ministers of Foreign Relations of the Electorate of Bavaria, Count von Preysing until 1764 (and Baron von Schroff who worked under him), Count von Paumgarten until 1772, and Count von Seinsheim (who had collaborated with Preysing in the negotiations of the Franco-Bavarian treaty of 1756). From 1772 to 1776, this diplomatic correspondence was coupled with an exchange of direct letters between Count Van Eyck and the Elector himself, as their relations evolved into a trusting familiarity; this sometimes secret exchange is particularly nourished for all the sensitive matters affecting more precisely the house of Wittelsbach. A VAST PICTURE OF THE AFFAIRS OF FRANCE, ENAMELLED WITH MULTIPLE ANECDOTES. If count Van Eyck regularly treats of what concerns directly the Electorate of Bavaria, in particular in its rivalry with Austria, he abundantly evokes the questions of the kingdom of France: on the diplomatic and military level, he speaks about the Seven Years' War (1757-1763), the conquest of Corsica or the expedition of Minorca (1756); on the domestic front, he gives all sorts of information on the parliamentary fronde and the Maupeou reform (1770-1774), the financial crisis, various appointments and cabals, news from the Court, the king's movements, the Damiens attack (1757), births, marriages or bereavements, but also miscellaneous facts and curiosities, such as the affair of the papers of the Chevalier d'Eon. With various appendices: copies of treaties, letters, notably to several of the seven French secretaries of state who succeeded each other at the Foreign Office or to the French envoys in Munich, the Abbé Comte de Guébriant in 1755 and the Chevalier Hubert de Folard until 1776, nephew of the famous military theorist,

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VAN EYCK (Maximilian Emmanuel Franz). Manuscript... - Lot 21 - Osenat

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