Abbot d'Olivet. Important autograph manuscript,... - Lot 315 - Conan Belleville Hôtel d'Ainay

Abbot d'Olivet. Important autograph manuscript, with numerous corrections, entitled Demosthene. Dated "Reims 1703". In 1700, the abbot d'Olivet was sent as a professor at the College of Reims and became friends with Maucroix]. At the bottom of page 64, d'Olivet wrote the following, nearly 60 years after the manuscript was written: "I have just burned almost all my writings. But this one, the oldest of all, seemed to me to be worth keeping, because it will show my little nephew that I learned Greek early on. November 3, 1762. Unpublished translation of Demosthenes' last and most famous speech, entitled On the Crown, in response to Eschine's Counter Ctesiphon. This translation ends with an 8-page commentary by Abbé d'Olivet. "All the masters of art who spoke of the harangue for Ctesiphon, regard it as the masterpiece of his autheur. Cicero, the most skillful judge who ever was in the matter of eloquence, made such a case of this work that he translated it into his own language []. My intention is not to bid on the thoughts of this skillful translator []. I only claim to say a word of the second Philippic of Cicero which has much to do with the prayer over the crown [].