New light on an old atlas: Documents concerning the publication of the Atlas Universel (1757)Footnote*

A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 10th International Conference on the History of Cartography in Dublic, August 1983. Participation in the conference and further research in Paris was supported by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities.

All illustrations are by courtesy of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor‐Photographic Services.

References

• Pedley , M. 1979 . ‘The Subscription List of the Atlas Universel’ . Imago Mundi , 31 : 66 – 67 .
   Google Scholar
• ’De l'entreprise et l'exécution du nouvel Atlas’ . Atlas Universel , 18 – 19 . Didier Robert de Vaugondy, Chapitre VI, Préface historique
   Google Scholar
• BN. Ge. FF. 13374, Procès de géographie entre Boudet Libraire et Delahaye graveur de cartes; ècrit in très grande partie par Buache. BN. Ge. FF. 13375, Discussion de géographie entre Buache et le libraire Boudet. I would like to thank Mlle. Lucie La Garde of the Département des Cartes et Plans for her help in reviewing these manuscripts with me and whose own work on Philippe Buache will add greatly to our understanding of eighteenth‐century cartography. All errors, of course, are my own. The original orthography of these manuscripts has been retained, modern accents added.
   Google Scholar
• Phillippe Buache (1700–1773) was the protégé and son‐in‐law of Guillaume Delisle (1675–1726). He was appointed premier géographe du roi in 1727 and held the place of adjoint‐géographe in the Academy of Sciences.
   Google Scholar
• Delalain , Paul . 1903 . Les libraires et imprimeurs de l'Académie Francaise Paris Antoine Boudet (d. 1787) was born in Lyon the son of a bookdealer. After his father's death, his mother married Jean‐Baptiste III Coignard, printer for the Académie Francaise. Apprenticed to his step‐father, Boudet was received as a. libraire in 1734, as a printer in 1742, and eventually went into business with both his step‐father and brother‐in‐law, Pierre Gilles le Mercier, on the rue St. Jacques near the church of St. Yves at the corner of the rue des Noyers. Boudet was appointed libraire‐imprimeur to the Université de Paris in 1750, succeeding his step‐father in this post. (Archives Nationales, Série 01 94 fol. 27.)
   Google Scholar
• Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignan de Malesherbes (1721–1794) was director of the Librairie (the official body which oversaw all publishing activities in Paris) from 1750–1763. Known for his tolerance and encouragement of a freer press, he supported the publication of the Encyclopédie during his tenure as director.
   Google Scholar
• Buache received this privilege on 30 April 1745; there is a copy in BN. Ge. FF. 13373, Procés entre Buache gendre de Delisle et Les Héritiers de la Veuve Delisle, dont presque toutes les pieces sont de la main de Buache.
   Google Scholar
• Ge. FF. 13373 gives a fuller account of the seizures made on 6 and 8 August 1746. The maps in question were those of Denmark, Spain, Champagne, Limoges, the Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland. The settlement with Buache in Archives Nationales (hereafter AN), Minutier Central LVII, 383, 18 août 1747.
   Google Scholar
• No such reglement was enacted under Malesherbes’ administration. In the Collection Anisson (BN, Dept. des Manuscrits), which concerns the Librairie, there is a note in the hand of d'Hemery, successor to Malesherbes, which suggests ‘les choses nécessaires pour remedier de l'abus que s'est introduit pour les cartes de géographie. Ne permettre l'impresion ou la gravure des cartes de géographie qu'elles n'ayant été vues et approuvées savoir l'ancienne géographie par l'Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles‐Lettres et la géographie moderne par l'Académie des Sciences’. BN ms. fr. 22122 (69), 20 nov. 1762. In effect, this would have given d'Anville (Académie des Inscriptions) and Buache (Académie des Sciences) the right to approve or disapprove maps. There is no evidence that d'Hemery's suggestion was enforced.
   Google Scholar
• Archives, Académie des Sciences: Pochettes de Séances, 1754 (plumatifs). A list of expenses for two cartes minérologiques made by Buache in 1746. See also Buache's own brief autobiography in BN. Ge. FF. 13373 (note 6).
   Google Scholar
• Morvilliers , Masson de . 1784 . “ ‘Discours sur la Geographie’ ” . In Encyclopédie Méthodique xiv – xv . Paris, Panckoucke
   Google Scholar
• 11 Unpublished thesis on the life and works of Nicolas Sanson, his sons and heirs, by Mireille Pastoureau, Dept. des Cartes et Plans, Bibliothèque Nationale. The chapters on the connection between Guillaume Sanson and the Jaillots and on the succession of Pierre Moullard‐Sanson are most useful for any study of the French map trade. My thanks to Mme. Pastoureau for granting me access to her work.
   Google Scholar
• AN, MC I, 353, 22 mai 1731. Frémont and Robert bought the Perrier portion of the Sanson inheritance for 4,000 livres.
   Google Scholar
• AN, MC LXXVI, 259, 19 dec. 1733. The Mariette collection was purchased for 6,000 livres (Jean Mariette had no doubt inherited the maps from his father, Pierre, who had been in partnership with Nicolas Sanson). These sales contracts did not give the Roberts a complete Sanson collection, however. Certain Sanson maps had been acquired from Guillaume Sanson by the Jaillot family; this created a certain stir during the advertising of the Atlas Universel when the Jaillots objected to the Roberts’ claim of possessing all the Sanson fonds. Mèmoires de Trévoux ou Mémoires pour l'Historie des Sciences et Beaux Arts Juillet 1752, pp. 1524–1525.
   Google Scholar
• As with the Atlas Universel the plates for the small Atlas Portatif did not belong to Robert. His son later described the atlas thus: ‘Il est actuellement rare, les planches ayant été usées et dispersées.’ (Catalogue at end of Mémoire sur les pays see note 17.) The plates were perhaps not as dispersed as the Roberts thought, for a later, though undated, edition of the atlas is in the Bibliothèque Nationale (Ge. FF. 2658) published by Panckoucke in Paris and Pîtel‐Prefontaine at Falaise. This atlas ironically has a frontispiece engraved by Baisiez.
   Google Scholar
• 1752 . Journal des Sçavans , April : 254 – 255 . (Paris ed.). The idea of uniform scale was probably Didier's, whose interest in projections and scales may be seen in much of his written work
   Google Scholar
• 1752 . Journal des Sçavans , May : 554 – 555 . (Chez Rey, Amsterdam)
   Google Scholar
• Weinreb and Douwma , eds. 1970 . Catalogue 6 Maps: Outline of the British Isløs: printed maps 1482–1887 This earlier state of the British Isles (Britannicae Insulae . . . 1750) in which the Cassiterides Insulae or Scilly Isles are not shown is cited by Tony Campbell as State 1 of #178 in Other copies are in BNGe 4796 (114) and in Harvard Library
   Google Scholar
• 1774 . Mémoire sur les payes de l'Asie et de l'Amérique Paris Probably Jacques Cassini (1669–1756), French astronomer and scion of the famous Cassini family. I have been unable to find a copy of his report approving the seventeen Robert maps. Robert's catalogue appeared at the end of the
   Google Scholar
• BN. ms. fr. 22136, fol. 30: Memoire presenté à M. de Malesherbes par Philippe Buache . . . sur Essai de l'Histoire de la Géographie 7 juin 1755. Buache noted that an earlier Essai sur l'Histoire (in‐fol. 1751) was suppressed after his negative report to Malesherbes regarding the seventeen maps accompanying it. Buache thought little better of the 1754 Essai: ’Dans le nouvel essai de la Géographie, l'Histoire a les mêmes defauts qu'elle avoit dans sa premiere forme. On n'y trouve aucune citation, et c'est un plagiat trés considérable d'un ouvrage de M. La Martinière publié sur le même sujet, dont on a permis l'impression l'année dernière, comme il a paru par le catalogue de M. Herissant de la Rue St. Jacques. . .”
   Google Scholar
• Procès‐verbaux, Académie des Sciences, 9 août 1752. Report with approbation made 6 September 1752. Buache read another portion of the Observations to the assembly on 2 May 1753, which was likewise approved and later published by the Academy.
   Google Scholar
• Wagner , H. R. 1937 . Cartography of the North‐West Coast of America Berkeley Much has been written about the de Fuente discoveries. The best summary and analysis may be found in
   Google Scholar
• Wagner , H. R. 1932 . ‘Apocryphal voyages to the North‐West Coast of America’ . American Antiquarian Society Proceedings , 41 : 179 – 234 . Chapter 22: ‘The Delisle‐Buache Fantasy’. See also
   Google Scholar
• Procès‐verbaux, Académie des Sciences, 26 mai 1753. Robert de Vaugondy based his argument on the non‐existence of de Fuente (a correspondent of Robert's in Madrid had been unable to find any mention of the Admiral in the Spanish archives) and the improbable speed of de Fuente's voyage up the American coast and then inland nearly to Hudson's Bay and back in five months. The views of both Buache and Robert de Vaugondy were published by Boudet as Observations Critiques sur les Nouvelles Décourvertes de l'Amiral de Fuente [Robert de Vaugondy], 1753, and Lettre de M. Buache . . . sur les nouvelles Décourvertes, Reponse de M. Robert de Vaugondy, Réplique de M. Buache 1754.
   Google Scholar
• Procès‐Verbaux, Academie des Sciences; 7 juillet 1753: Bouguer et Montigny's report on Buache's mémoire; 24 juillet 1753 : Bouguer et Le Monnier's report on Robert de Vaugondy's mémoire.
   Google Scholar
• Jean‐Baptiste‐Henri Delahaye was the elder son of the engraver Jean‐Baptiste Delahaye and brother of Guillaume‐Nicolas Delahaye (1725–1802). The family engraved maps for Buache, d'Anville, and Cassini de Thury, as well as for the Robert de Vaugondys.
   Google Scholar
• There were several Laurents who were map engravers in this period; without a first name or address it is difficult to determine which Laurent was working for the Delahayes. BN ms n.a.f. 12131 (38381) copies a marriage certificate for 9 April 1755 between Pierre Laurent, graveur en géographie 20 years old, and Marie Anne Mallet, 26 1/2 years old, widow of Jean Baptiste Henri Delahaye, graveur en géographie both of the Rue de la Petite Sonnerie. This document may explain Mme Delahaye's vociferous defense of Laurent in the lawsuit. Baisiez was probably the lettering specialist who executed the highly ornate dedication page to Cassini de Thury for Louis‐Charles Desnos’ L'Indicateur Fidèle of 1765 and the frontispiece for the Panckoucke edition of Roberts’ Atlas Portatif (undated see note 13).
   Google Scholar
• The libraire Durand, if indeed the same Durand mentioned by Mme. Delahaye, was linked with the Roberts in a number of publications: Introduction à la Géographie des Srs. Sanson (4th edition, 1743); Abrégé des differens systêmes du monde (1745); Géographie Sacrée et Historique (1747); Atlas Portatif, Universel et Militaire (1748) (to accompany the Grammaire Géographique translated from the English of Patrick Gordon, also published by Durand); Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes of M. le Président de Brosses, 1766, with seven maps by Robert de Vaugondy, dated 1756, engraved by Delahaye. A P. E. G. Durand was one of the Libraires Associés who published the new edition of Le Grand Dictionnarie Géographique of Bruzen de la Martinière in 1768 for which the Atlas Universel served as the sixth volume (see note 34).
   Google Scholar
• The amount of 40 livres comes, in fact, from a later part of the manuscript wherein it is clear that 40 was the amount agreed upon (an increase of 10 livres over the original traité‘s 30 livres for corrections). In Buache's draft of the Projet d'Accommodement the number 20 has been erased and 24 pencilled into the text which is otherwise in ink, leaving one to suppose that this figure was subject to some debate.
   Google Scholar
• There is an earlier state of the Ireland map in the Map Library of the British Library Reference Division—BL C. 38. f 4 (4). It shows far fewer place names and has therefore a less congested quality. Perhaps this is the delicate italic to which Mme. Delahaye referred. Another copy of this early state is in the Harvard Library.
   Google Scholar
• The sale of Boudet's stock after his death shows a great variety of books—religious, classical, and historical—of which only a relative few relate to maps and geography. The Atlas Universel is not among the geographical works listed in the catalogue of this sale: BN. ms. fr. 21824.
   Google Scholar
• Most of the maps in the Atlas Universel are not signed by any engraver (the majority of cartouches are signed by Elizabeth or Marie‐Catherine Haussard). Guillaume Delahaye signed twelve; Delahaye l'ainé, five; E. Dussy, one; the rest are not signed though Mme. Delahaye's report tells us that Vallet was one of the engravers, and a Vallet does submit a note concerning engraving work. (Probably Jean‐Emmanuel Jerome Vallet, b. 1716, whose godfather was the geographer J. B. Nolin.) See H. Herluison, Actes d'Etat‐Civil d'Artiste Français . . . extraits des registres de l'Hotel de Ville de Paris (1873). Guillaume Delahaye also wrote a letter to his brother as evidence to show that he too received bons from the Roberts in order to be paid.
   Google Scholar
• It is unclear, for example, when Mme. Delahaye says Robert de Savigny gave a sphere to Baisiez to engrave, whether this was his own work or whether he was simply delivering manuscripts for his father or brother. A sphere of Copernicus engraved by Delahaye appeared in Robert's Usage des Globes célestes et terrestres published by Boudet in 1751.
   Google Scholar
• From the introduction to the Liste des Souscriteurs of the Atlas Universel.
   Google Scholar
• Gilles Robert's profits in 1737 amounted to 624 livres. AN: MC, XX, 561, 19 juillet 1737. Other documents reveal a complicated financial relationship with Jean Frémont.
   Google Scholar
• 1907 . Procès‐Verbaux du Comité d'instruction publique de la Convention Nationale Vol. 6 , 119 Paris for 2 Floreal An III (21 avril 1795)
   Google Scholar
• A copy of this interim edition (i.e. prior to the Boudet edition of 1783) may be found in the Cambridge University Library Acton Collection, Acton aa. 45. 8. It shows many peculiar changes to the plates, particularly in the form of lettering: the changing of italic to Roman and vice‐versa, the addition and removal of place names; the inaccurate alteration of coastlines.
   Google Scholar
• As to the use of the Atlas Universel as an accompaniment to the Dictionnaire Géographique Robert de Vaugondy's published catalogue of 1777 (BN Ge. D. 7808): ‘Il est peu de Curieux qui ne joignt cet Atlas au Dictionnarie Géographique de la Martinière in‐folio, les nouvelles éditions de ce Dictionnaire ayant puisé dans cet Atlas les latitudes and les longitudes des lieux’.
   Google Scholar
• Darby , H. C. and Fullard , Harold . 1969 . The New Cambridge Modem History Atlas , Cambridge : University Press . Preface to
   Google Scholar
• A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 10th International Conference on the History of Cartography in Dublic, August 1983. Participation in the conference and further research in Paris was supported by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities. All illustrations are by courtesy of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor‐Photographic Services.
   Google Scholar