THE ‘MAD AMBITION’ OF REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE
IRWIN, Eyles.
The Triumph of Innocence; an Ode. Written on the Deliverance of Maria Theresa Charlotte, Princess Royal of France, from the Prison of the Temple …
London, W. Bulmer for G. Nicol, 1796.
Large 4to, pp. 22, [2 (blank)], with a half-title; a fine copy, stitched as issued in the original blue drab wrappers.
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The Triumph of Innocence; an Ode. Written on the Deliverance of Maria Theresa Charlotte, Princess Royal of France, from the Prison of the Temple …
First and only edition, very rare, of this anti-Jacobin poem celebrating the release of Marie Thérèse of France (1778–1851), eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, from the Temple prison, where she had been held since 1792 as the rest of her family were gradually removed and executed.
Liberated in December 1795, the Princess went into exile in Austria as part of a prisoner exchange and later moved to Britain, remaining there until the Bourbon Restoration. The India-born Irish poet and East India Company employee Eyles Irwin (1751–1817) celebrates the occasion as demonstration that France has awoken from a ‘dream … of mad ambition’ in which a ‘democratic crew’ left ‘of polish’d life, no trace’. His notes at the end explain passing reference to hurricanes in the West Indies, and quote his own poem on the execution of Marie Antoinette and his ‘epitaph’ on the French Convention, as well as a sonnet on Marie Thérèse’s arrival into exile. Irwin is probably best known for his travelogues of voyages from India via the Red Sea in 1777 and back to India via the Persian Gulf in 1780. In later life he published a number of poems and plays, some of which ‘criticize the [East India] company’s policy from an Indian perspective’ (ODNB).
ESTC, Library Hub and OCLC record three copies only: British Library, Bodley, and Cambridge.
ESTC T54287.
