383-WEBER (Joseph). Mémoires concernant Marie-Antoinette, archduchess of Austria, Queen of France; et sur plusieurs époques importantes de la Révolution française, depuis son origine jusqu'au 16 octobre 1793, jour du martyre de Sa Majesté; suivis du récit historique du Procès et du Martyre de Madame Elizabeth; de l'empoisonnement de Louis XVII dans la Tour du Temple; de la délivrance de Madame Royale, fille de Louis XVI, et de quelques événements ultérieurs. By Joseph Weber, milk brother of this unfortunate sovereign. À Londres, de l'imprimerie de Daponte et Vogel, 1804-1807, 3 vol. gr. in-8, XIX-(2)-432- (1 f. d'errata) , 4 plates ; (4)-400 pp-CVI-V-(1 page d'errata), 4 plates, ; (7)-(24) pp. de liste des souscripteurs, 420-LIX-V pp., 3 plates, eggplant half-maroquin with corners, smooth spine, gilt fillets (period binding). Rare first edition. Printed on heavy paper, this edition is decorated with 10 portraits of the royal family and an allegorical plate, most engraved by Schiavonetti after drawings or paintings by Danloux, Stroehling or Boze. Numerous handwritten additions and corrections to the list of subscribers, Bibliographical tradition (Quérard, Tourneux) gives Lally-Tollendal as the author of this work. However, the printed circulars, one of which bears Weber's autograph signature, cast doubt on this attribution. The reprinting of these memoirs in the Collection des mémoires relatifs à la Révolution française "gave rise to a lawsuit between Weber and the Baudouin brothers. The latter alleged that Weber was not the author of the memoirs, and that the accusation was therefore unfounded. They cited as evidence a letter from M. le marquis de Lally-Tollendal, who confessed to having written, according to his personal memoirs and some particular instructions from the Duc de Choiseul, what concerned the Queen's domestic interior in Vienna and Versailles; and according to a small number of Weber's notes, the foreword, 1st, 2nd and 3rd chapters of these Memoirs" (Quérard). The foreword to the 1822 edition also states that the copies entering France were seized by the imperial police, and that this new edition was based on the only remaining copy. This is unlikely ... In any case, this is one of the best testimonies from someone close to the Queen. The son of Marie-Antoinette's nanny, Weber followed his milk-sister to France and proved himself an attentive biographer. Quérard, IV, 466. Tourneux, Marie-Antoinette devant l'histoire, 46. Fierro, 1494. A fine copy. Ex-libris Bibliothèque du château de Wideville.