The Gendarme and the Cheese
[ALMANACK.]
Le double Liègeois, almanach journalier pour 1842, supputé par M. Math. Laensberg, suivi de ses véritables prophéties. Liège and Paris, Stahl, [1841].
12mo in 8s and 4s, pp. [240]; large woodcut vignette to title and numerous woodcuts printed in text; crease to title, adhesion to f. (13)3r, a little light foxing; a very good copy in contemporary red morocco, gilt border and frame to covers, spine gilt and lettered directly, gilt edges and turn-ins, watered silk endpapers; extremities lightly rubbed.
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Le double Liègeois, almanach journalier pour 1842, supputé par M. Math. Laensberg, suivi de ses véritables prophéties.
Rare issue of the long-running and highly entertaining Almanach de Liège, illustrated with numerous crudely printed woodcuts.
Alongside advice on forecasting the weather, month-by-month tips on gardening, lists of fairs, horoscopes, and adverts for medicinal cures, the content includes delightfully vague predictions of future events and numerous amusing stories and anecdotes. Spring promises an ‘atrocious assassination of three individuals and the mutilation of their bodies’, while in May readers could look forward to ‘a furious beast’ causing ‘great destruction and the death of many’. The short comic stories include ‘The gendarme and the cheese’, in which the titular policeman is given the slip by a thief while distracted by a Gruyère.
The woodcuts include an unusable map of France, portraits of King Louis Philippe and his wife, and medallions of past French kings (as well as Napoleon) with accompanying biographies.
No copies outside France on OCLC.