PRÉFONTAINE (Jean-Antoine Bruletout de). Maison rustique à l'usage des habitants de la partie de la France équinoxiale connue sous le nom de Cayenne. - LA SALLE DE L'ÉTANG (Simon-Philibert de)]. Dictionnaire galibi... preceded by an essay on grammar. Paris, Bauche, 1763. 2 parts in one volume in-8, red morocco, triple gilt fillet with fleurons at the corners, coat of arms in the centre, spine decorated, inner lace, gilt edges (period binding). First and only published edition of this rare manual for settlers in French Guiana. It is illustrated with 7 folding plates engraved on copper by Chalmandrier. This "Maison rustique de Cayenne" devotes many passages to the cultivation and preparation of food (manioc, roots, herbs and vegetables, fruit, poultry, hunting, fishing, etc.), drink (banana wine, inhame, mahogany, etc.), the manufacture of cocoa, coffee, sugar, cotton, roucou, indigo, black slaves and Indians, etc., and ends with an important dictionary of trees and plants detailing their food and medical uses. The second part of the volume contains a remarkable French-Galibi and Galibi-French dictionary in its original edition, accompanied by an essay on the grammar of this language spoken by the Kalinagos, the Caribbean ethnic group that inhabits southern Venezuela, French Guiana and northern Brazil. Préfontaine, the author of the first part, was commander of the northern part of French Guiana granted to the Duke of Choiseul for the establishment of the colony of Kourou. He dedicated the work to Choiseul, Louis XV's principal minister and Minister of War and the Navy, who wanted to establish a new settlement in French Guiana in order to reassert France's position in America, which had been undermined in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris. This episode is known as the "Kourou disaster": around fifteen thousand French colonists (mostly from Alsace and Lorraine) were sent to the Guiana savannahs. The colonial project, poorly prepared and carried out in an approximate manner, was a total failure: the colonists, some of whom were already ill on the overcrowded boat, disembarked at Kourou in the middle of the wet season and in the marshes; twelve thousand died of disease in the course of the year and only around sixty families were able to take refuge on a nearby archipelago, named the Îles du Salut for the occasion, before returning to France. A precious and handsome copy in red morocco with the arms of the Duchess de Choiseul-Praslin, a cousin of Choiseul through her marriage to César-Gabriel de Choiseul-Chevigny (1712-1785), Marquis de Choiseul and later Duc de Praslin, who was then Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of his cousin Étienne-François de Choiseul-Stainville, to whom the work is dedicated. Anne-Marie de Champagne de Villaines de La Suze (1714-1783), daughter of René Brandelis de Champagne, Marquis de La Varenne and de Villaines, married César-Gabriel de Choiseul in 1732. She was lady of the palace of the dauphine. Minor rubbing to the edges, tiny chip to a headpiece, one corner dulled, small angular wetness to two plates. Bibliographie de la Guyane française, 215 - Vicaire, 708 - Leclerc, n°1538 - Sabin, n°65039 - INED, n°3656 bis.