Projet d'une dixme royale. Qui supprimant la taille, Les Aydes, les Doüanes d'une Province à l'autre, les Décimes du Clergé, les Affaires extraordinaires; & tous autres Impôts onéreux & non volontaires: Et diminuant le prix du Sel de moitié & plus, produiroit au Roy un Revenu certain et suffisant, sans frais; & sans être à charge à l'un de ses Sujets plus qu'à l'autre, qui s'augmenteroit considérablement par la meilleure Culture des Terres.

No place (Rouen?), 1707. With one folding table. (8), 204, (20) pp. 4to. Contemporary calf, spine gilt with raised bands, gilding faded, a bit rubbed, inner hinge front cover cracked but binding solid. En Français dans le Texte, 134; Bourgeois & André 6702; Stourm 63; Kress 2583; Goldsmiths 4431; McCulloch, p. 342f; Masui, p. 396; Carpenter X (1); this edition not in INED and Einaudi, OCLC and RLIN locate only three copies at Keio, Yale and Minnesota. Very rare first edition, with B4 in cancelled state: on p. 16, a setier is correctly given as weighing 240 pounds, and a notable rarity, of 'an erudite economic work much in advance of its time, and distinguished both by accuracy of method and breadth of view' (Palgrave), 'creditable alike to the heart and the head of its illustrious author' (McCulloch). 'Though the book was published anonymously, and only a few copies issued (for circulation among friends), Vauban had to submit to the mortification of seeing it 'pilloried' by the parliament, while he himself incurred the displeasure of the king (Louis XIV). A few weeks later he died' (Palgrave). The copy of the author himself contained four pages of manuscript in which statements were to be found which could not be printed and in which Vauban, among other things, clearly distinguishes between nobles which have earned their title and position by their actions, whether by their ancestors and by themselves and are an honour to the State, and those who have purchased their titles and are of no use at all to the State. The Projet d'une Dixme Royale is an outstanding work in the field of public finance. Its two most notable features are its understanding of the central role of fiscal policy in economic reform - the result of an exceptionally comprehensive grasp of the economic process - and its use of detailed numerical data to substantiate conclusions. Schumpeter called the work 'unsurpassed, before or after, in the neatness and cogency of the argument ..... Purposefull marshalling of all the available data was the essence of his analysis. Nobody ever understood better the true relation between facts and argument. It is this that makes him an economic classis in the eulogistic sense of the work, and a forerunner of modern tendencies' (Schumpeter, History of Economic analysis, p. 204).According to Boislisle, the first edition was printed in Rouen in 1706 at the initiative of the Abbé de Beaumont (who is actually credited with the authorship of the work by Boisguilbert). Vauban had the sheets bound by the widow of a certain Fétil, and took great pains that the book did not have any public circulation. It was prohibited on 14 February 1707, but apparently the police were only able to seize two copies. To the police, the binder declared she had had 264 copies in total, 12 bound in morocco, the rest in calf. The two copies seized at the Abbé de Beaumont's were described as in 'veau fauve' and marbled parchment. See Arthur Michel de Boislisle, La Proscription du projet de Dime Royale et la mort de Vauban (Mémoire lu à l'Académie des sciences morales et politiques), Paris, 1875. - The folding plate is a very well done xerox on old paper.