Full tree calf with black title plates, gilt decoration, banding and lettering on the spine.

volumes.  I, II, III, IV and V.  Stunning binding.

Sully left a collection of memoirs (Mémoires, otherwise known as the Économies royales, 1638) written in the second person very valuable for the history of the time and as an autobiography, in spite of the fact that they contain many fictions, such as a mission undertaken by Sully to Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1601.

Maximilien de Béthune, 1st Duke of Sully, Marquis of Rosny and Nogent, Count of Muret and Villebon, Viscount of Meaux (13 December 1560 – 22 December 1641) was a nobleman, soldier, statesman, and counselor of King Henry IV of France. Historians emphasize Sully’s role in building a strong centralized administrative system in France using coercion and highly effective new administrative techniques. While not all of his policies were original, he used them well to revitalize France after the European Religious Wars. Most, however, were repealed by later monarchs who preferred absolute power. Historians have also studied his Neostoicism and his ideas about virtue, prudence, and discipline.