Le Blond - Élémens de fortification - 1756

LE BLOND, [Guillaume]
Elements of fortification, containing the principles & the reasoned description of the various works used in the fortification of places; the systems of the principal engineers, irregular fortification, etc.
Fourth edition, Corrected & augmented.
By M. Le Blond, Master of Mathematics to His Grace the Duke of Burgundy.
In Paris, At Charles-Antoine Jombert, Printer-Librarian to the King for Artillery & Engineering, rue Dauphine, near Notre-Dame.
M. DCC. LVI [1756]. With the Approbation & Privilege of the King.

A volume in-12, bound in full brown mottled calf of the period, spine with raised bands ornamented with gold-tooled floral tulip motifs, sprinkled edges. The work opens with a title in red and black and contains the technical parts devoted to the defenses of warlik e places.

Era-binding in full calf showing signs of use, wear to the binding edges and minor losses to the headbands, but a solid structure and a beautiful antique patina. Internally generally sound and clean, with careful typography.

The illustration includes 18 plates out of the 19 announced. Plate 1 is missing.

Published by Charles-Antoine Jombert, a reference bookseller for military sciences during the reign of Louis XV, this work by Guillaume Le Blond (1704–1781) is one of the most influential eighteenth-century manuals of military art and practical geometry. A teacher to the greatest princes of the Court, Le Blond clearly presents the science of fortifications, inheriting Vauban and essential to any military engineer of the Enlightenment era.

The work methodically details the architecture of ramparts, bastions, ditches, and advanced works, establishing itself as the absolute reference for the training of officers of the royal armies.

In the Age of Enlightenment, poliorcetics (the art of attacking and defending fortified places) was raised to the rank of queen science. Le Blond’s treatises were not merely library books: they were carried onto the battlefields and into the tents of military engineers engaged in the wars of the European Succession.