Marie-Antoinette de Beauvillier, Superior of Notre-Dame des Anges de Montargis.

[Nuns] / M. Jacques. Abrégé de la vie et des vertus de feue tres-digne et tres-reverende mère Marie-Antoinette de Beauvillier, dite de Saint Benoist, Quatrième prieure perpétuelle du monastère des Bénédictines de Notre-Dame des Anges de Montargis. Paris: Chez Hippolyte-Louis Guérin, ruë S. Jacques, à Saint Thomas d’Aquin, 1751. 8vo [25.6 x 18.8 cm], viii pp., 74 pp., [1] f., with woodcut title vignette, head-piece and factotum initial. Bound in contemporary calf, gold-stamped red morocco lettering piece laid to spine, gold-tooled spine, cover borders, board edges, and turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, red silk ribbon bookmark. Corners of boards rubbed, some staining to title, the occasional stain elsewhere.

Rare (1 U.S. copy: Harvard) first and only edition of this ‘Life’ of the recently deceased noblewoman nun Marie-Antoinette de Beauvillier (1679-1749), who for 42 years was Superior of the Benedictine convent of Notre-Dame des Anges de Montargis (some 60 miles south of Paris).

The work was written by the Confessor at the convent, a certain M. Jacques, who, grateful for his role at the house, dedicated the book to the new Superior, Madame de Luynes.

Marie-Antoinette de Beauvillier’s maternal grandfather was the famed Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1618-83), and her father was Paul de Beauvilliers, duc de Saint-Aignan (1648-1714). Jacques tells of her considerable administrative talents and spiritual virtues, giving details of other nuns at Notre-Dame des Anges de Montargis.

The book is beautifully bound, and it is worth noting that it was done in the same manner as the Lyon Public Library (Bibliothèque jésuite des Fontaines) copy.

OCLC and KVK locate 1 U.S. example of this work: Harvard.