BALZAC (Jean Louis GUEZ de) : Le Barbon. Paris, Augustin Courbé, 1648; in 8°, red morocco, spine with very ornate nerves, boards decorated in the style of Du Seuil, arms stamped in the center of the boards. binding with the arms of Pierre SEGUIER, Chancellor of France, 1588-1672. It is in fact a rebinding of the binding on the volume. Copy from the library of Alfred PIAT, famous bibliophile, Parisian notary at the time of Hausmann's works, who ceased his activity to devote himself to his library and his collections. First edition, dedicated to Gilles Ménage, decorated with a beautiful frontispiece by François Chauveau engraved on copper by Nicolas Regnesson. This novelized account is in fact a polemical writing of Balzac, who, under the aspects of Barbon, attacks two of his opponents, François de Harlay, archbishop of Rouen, and the philologist Guyet