Description
Printed Receipt, signed ‘J.L.De Lolme’, for payment (details left blank) for “a complete and correct French Edition of the Constitution of England (La Constitution de l’Angleterre) which I hereby promise to deliver, in, or before, the next Month of July”. 4 x 6 inches, very lightly tipped on to an album page with an engraved portrait of De Lolme and a biography. 1783. Jean-Louis de Lolme (1740 – 1806), Swiss and British political theorist and writer on constitutional matters, born in Geneva. As an adult he moved to England, and became a British subject. His most famous work was Constitution de l’Angleterre (The Constitution of England, 1771), which was subsequently published in English as well. In it, de Lolme advocated a constitutional form of government enshrining the principle that monarchy, aristocracy and democracy should be balanced against each other. He also praised the element of representative democracy in the constitution, and urged an extension of suffrage. The work influenced many of the framers of the United States Constitution.