[TACHARD (Guy)]. Second voyage de Siam des pères jésuites, e - Lot 218

[TACHARD (Guy)]. Second voyage de Siam des pères jésuites, envoyés par le roy, aux Indes & à la Chine. Avec leurs observations astronomiques, & leurs remarques de physique, de géographie, d'hydrographie, & d'histoire... Amsterdam, Pierre Mortier, 1689. In-12, (4)-369-(7) p., contemporary brown calf, ornate ribbed spine, gilt title, speckled edges (binding worn, inner hinge split; light stain to title, moderate scattered russeting). Second edition in-12. Illustrated with a title frontispiece, 1 engraved vignette to the title, 6 folding engravings. After a first mission to Siam (1685), Jesuit Father Guy Tachard (1651-1712) returned to France accompanied by the Siamese ambassador, Kosan Pan, who brought a proposal of alliance and the mission of obtaining from Louis XIV the dispatch of twelve Jesuit mathematicians to the court of the Siamese king, Narai. Tachard left Brest on March 4, 1687 with the ambassador, the director of the Compagnie des Indes and the thirteen Jesuit fathers on board five armed ships. This work provides invaluable information on the mores, customs, politics and natural history of the kingdom of Siam. (Boucher de La Richarderie, V, 99; Cordier, BI, 953; De Backer-Sommervogel VII, 1802; Chadenat, n°187).