First edition. It's not surprising that Abel Matthieu, in advocating a return to a more elegant and balanced French language, chose to have his argument printed by Richard Breton in Philippe Danfrie's civilité type, which itself was a celebration of the beauty of an earlier French secretary hand; a kind of atavistic return to an element of French national identity. Matthieu, a jurist who structures his thesis very much as a legal argument, rejects the use of complexity in both grammar and syntax, loathes the notion of simplified spelling—an orthographic movement en vogue—and abhors the idea that the French language is a derivation of Latin and Greek, instead asserting that the written version of the national tongue is essentially an autonomous, entirely self-sustaining creature, and should not be messed with. Vervliet and Carter, in their monograph on civilité types, express this with far more acuity: 

In the resolve to make the vernacular a competitor with Latin for serious books and in the programmes of the time for a literature in French and for reforming and regularizing the language, guarding it from excess of latinity and italicism, there was some purely nationalist sentiment. One of the manifestoes, the Devis de la langue francoise by Abel Matthieu was originally set in Civilité type.

The typographic expression of the national calligraphic hand was not known as civilité until about 1810 (this was probably Brunet's fault), but as lettre françoise, which was the nomination of its inventor, Robert Granjon; it's surely no accident that Matthieu's title, langue françoise, is a nod to Granjon's patriotic novelty. Books printed in civilité are well studied, and the earliest editions have been objects of bibliophilic lust for more than two centuries. Richard Breton probably printed 15 books in Philippe Danfrie's civilité type, a delicate and beautiful fount with dramatic majuscules originally cast on a larger St. Augustin (English) body, allowing for visually appealing leading between lines, but which sometimes caused crowding and overlap between words. Matthieu's Devis (a term probably best translated here as testimonial) was the first book published by Breton in which Danfrie's name does not appear in the imprint, and probably signaled the end of their official association. Matthieu wrote a kind of sequel to this manifesto on language in 1560, also published by Breton in the same fount, though only a year later the type was beginning to show signs of wear. Breton published both books in a single edition in roman type in 1572. Ours is an excellent copy of a comely example of Breton's press and Danfrie's typographic artistry, and the only complete exemplar to occur on the market in more than 60 years. No copies located in North American libraries; three found abroad.

Full title: Devis | de la langue francoyſe, | à Jehanne d’Albret, Royne de | Navarre, Ducheſſe de | Vandome, &c., | Par Abel Matthieu Natif | de Chartres. || [Breton's woodcut device] || A Paris. | De l'Imprimerie de Richard Breton, | Rue S. Jacques, à l'Eſcruiſſe. | 1559. | Auec priuilege du Roy.

Paris: Richard Breton, 1559.

Small octavo, 155 x 104 x 6 mm (binding), 153 x 102 x 4 mm (text block). A-E⁸, F⁴; 43, [1] ff. 19th-century blue-green Jansenist crushed morocco by Thibaron-Echaubard, titled and dated in gilt on spine, marbled endpapers, gilt-rolled dentelles, silk book-marker. Slightest wear to extremities. Interior: Leaves a bit toned; margins a trifle precious; insignificant spotting here and there.

Item #286