LA JONCHERE, Etienne Lecuyer de (1690-1740?) Système d'un nouveau gouvernement en France. Seconde edition. A Amsterdam, chez François le Bon 1720. 4 volumes in 1. 12mo (15,5 x 9 cm). [II],30,[2],96; [II],156; [II],192; [II],200,[4]p. With 4 folding tables (small tear in 2 tables). Contemp. calf, gilt back with red label, few old neat repairs, little rubbed. A few spots and some light staining, old name on title. € 5000

A notoriously rare proposal for financial and governmental reforms similar to the scheme of John Law. The extreme rarity of this book has been explained by Law's eagerness to destroy as many copies as he could find to hide the fact that much of his own ideas were contained in this book.
‘[La Jonchère] advocates one sole tax, to be paid without privilege or exemption, by all Frenchmen without distinction, to consist of a percentage collected in money or in kind, on the general produce of the ground, mines, quarries, etc., by a ‘Compagnie du Commerce', to be formed for the purpose. This company was to have the monopoly of foreign trade, its shares being given as reimbursement of the price of all the offices sold by the king's predecessors and of the capital of the rents due to towns or individuals. The corn collected by the company was also to be entrusted with the recoinage and ‘diminuations' of the metallic currency, which were to bring it down to what La Jonchère calls ‘its intrinsic value'.'
The mention of ‘Seconde edition' is probably fictious. WorldCat does not locate any copy printed before 1720. The 1970 EDHIS reprint also from this ‘second' edition. The name and place of the publisher are probably fictious as well.
*INED 2517. Not in Kress, Goldsmiths', Einaudi or Mattioli. Palgrave I,p.537.