[Arsenic Collection] Three Holy Lives To Learn From: L'Abbé Carron - Vie de Mme. de la Vallière etc (1853)

M. L’Abbé Carron. Vie de Mme. de la Vallière; Vie de Perrette- Marie de Combes de Morelles; Vie de Jean-Baptiste de la Salle. Paris & Limoges: Martial Ardant Frères, 1853.

(185 x 115 mm)  214 pp. and table with black and white engraved frontispiece and decorated boarder around title page with tissue guard. Pale green cardboard binding (cartonnage romantique papier), with color illustration onlay on the front cover and gilt decoration embossed on the both front and black covers. Back, spine, end bands, and corners rubbed with with some internal foxing. Overall GOOD condition.

ABOUT THE TEXT— 

From the series “Librairie des Bon Livres”

This text gives three 19th-century "hagiographies" of 17th-century holy French women and a man. 

Françoise-Louise de La Baume Blanc, the duchess of La Vallière (1644-1710), was Mistress of Louis XIV for six years. Amid this decadent lifestyle, she eventually turned to religion and entered a Carmelite convent in Paris.

Perrette- Marie de Combes de Morelles (1728- 1771), born to a noble family of Auvergne, wrote educational verse and prose for young ladies. 

Jean-Baptise de la Salle (1651-1719) founded the Brothers of the Christian Schools and was canonized as patron saint of teachers of youth. 

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER— Making Beautiful Books Available To All 

Martial Ardant began printing books for the youth in Limoges in 1807, inheriting a local printing business from his wife. He had four children, one of whom was Eugene Ardant. The printing business was passed to Eugene in 1837. In his application for a lithographic patent he applied to “make notable improvements to the number of works [they they had published], for the most part intended for the most numerous and the least fortunate of society.” His other three brothers joined within several decades and the Martial Ardant Frères— named after their father— grew in reputation and production ability. They had two mechanical and 11 or 12 hand pressed, along with a cardboard factory (for their beautiful cartonnages romantiques), a paper factory, and a stereotyping workshop. Their production employed more than 20 independent binders in Limoges.

ABOUT THE BINDING— Beautiful but Deadly

The emerald green pigment of on the binding of this book is due to the use of copper acetoarsenite— the cloth contains arsenic. Arsenic was used as a colouring agent for book bindings particularly between the 1840s to the 1860s. Often embellished with gold and blind stamping, as with this example, these bindings appear shiny or coated.

Bibliography:

Dictionnaire des imprimeurs-lithographes du XIXe siècle. École nationale des chartes.