GENEALOGY & HERALDRY – ROSNEL, Henry de (fl. 1770s). Bound manuscript signed, “Mémoire sur les possessions & droit de la maison royale de France”. [Paris,] 1773.

59 pages, 304 x 196mm, royal arms of France and Navarre in colors on dedication page, and fleuron vignette in black and brown ink and graphite on p. 5 incorporating flags and military ornaments. Contemporary French red morocco gilt, blue silk endpapers, with royal arms of France on covers (light wear).

France triumphant and its dominions, from the Western Sea to the Euphrates.In his signed dedication to King Louis XV, Rosnel explains that his research constitutes a trophy raised to the glory of the august house of France and the dominions over which it has exercised power over the ages. Presenting the quarters that make up the heraldic pennon of the various dominions, the author refers to Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange (1610-1688), who composed at the end of his memoirs a heraldic soleil de blasons comprising twenty-one current and former French possessions from east to west. Thus, legitimized by conquests or descent, Rosnel enumerates the possible claims of France: the Western Empire, the Eastern Empire, Portugal, Algarve, Castile and Leon, Navarre, Aragon, Majorca and Minorca, the Canary Islands, united Spain, England, Scotland, the United Provinces of the Low Countries, Liège, Brittany, Lorraine and Bar, Bavaria, Neufchâtel, Lombardy, Milan, Genoa, Florence, Parma, Plaisance and Guastalla, Naples and Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, Hungary, Bosnia and Sclavonia, Dalmatia, Poland and Lithuania, and the East and West Indies.