LA MOTTE (countess of). LIFE OF JEANNE DE ST. REMY DE VALOIS, formerly Countess de La Motte. Containing a detailed & exact account of the extraordinary events in which this unfortunate Lady has taken part since her birth, & which have contributed to raising her to the dignity of confidante & favourite of the Queen of France; With several subsequent particulars, likely to clear up the mysterious transactions relating to the diamond necklace, her imprisonment, & her almost miraculous escape,..; her Request to the National Assembly, in order to obtain a Revision of her Trial. Written by herself London, printed by J. Bew, 1791. 2 volumes in-8 of [4]-8 (chiffr from 8 to 14)-480 and [2]-480 pages, brown calf, fine gilt roulette on the boards, spine ribbed and decorated (English binding of the time). VERY RARE FIRST EDITION. "The steps and sacrifices made by the Court to prevent this book from appearing are proof enough of how much it feared publication and how many anecdotes it contained that it was quite happy to keep from public curiosity. The entire edition was in fact bought by the police and burnt in the furnaces of the Sèvres factory on 26 May 1792 by Laporte, Intendant of the Civil List. This copy is complete with the portrait of Madame de La Motte with her coat of arms, the key to the escape from the Salpétrière, engraved on page 190, and the 2 plates showing the escape in a boat on the Seine and the Countess disguised as a peasant girl, all drawn by Dodd and sculpted by Goldar. The only known copy cited by Tourneux is the one that passed in the sale of the library of Alfred Bégis in 1899 and signed by hand by the Countess. Spine faded, otherwise a good copy, three English press clippings of the period concerning Laporte are pasted on a flyleaf (Tourneux, p. 21152) (Quérard, II, 648). Provenance: Handwritten note "Provient de la collection de Nolhac".