Enlightenment Era Chess Strategy in De Montigny’s Les Stratagèmes des Échecs, 1802 First Edition

Alfred de Montigny

First Edition

De Montigny, Alfred. Les Stratagèmes des Échecs, ou collection des coups d’échecs les plus brillants et les plus curieux, tant dans la partie ordinaire que dans les différentes parties composées ; tirée des meilleurs Auteurs, et dont plusieurs n'ont point encore été publiés. Avec des planches où l'on trouve notée la position de chaque coup. (An X) 1802 stands as a significant early nineteenth-century French chess manual issued during the Napoleonic era, when France functioned as the intellectual center of European chess culture. Published in the tenth year of the French Revolutionary calendar, calculated from 1792, the work belongs to a period in which Parisian cafés and salons shaped modern competitive chess theory. De Montigny’s compilation systematizes celebrated tactical combinations drawn from earlier authorities while incorporating previously unpublished stratagems, presenting chess not merely as recreation but as disciplined intellectual exercise aligned with Enlightenment rationalism. The manual contributed to the codification and transmission of positional analysis at a moment when France’s dominance in chess would influence subsequent English and German traditions.

De Montigny, Alfred. Les Stratagèmes des Échecs. Paris and Strasbourg: Amand König, 1802 (An X). First edition. Two volumes bound in one. 4⅛ x 3 inches. Volume I presents textual descriptions of stratagems across standard and composed games; Volume II contains 120 engraved plates depicting chessboard positions, hand colored in gold, with chess pieces indicated by red and black letterpress symbols. Marbled endpapers. This copy contains the 120 illustrated plates in Volume II and does not include the engraved plate of a simple chessboard in Volume I noted in some copies. The work was later translated into German and into English in 1816, reflecting its international reception.

Issued at a time when French masters such as Philidor had elevated chess theory to analytical rigor, the manual reflects the broader European movement toward systematic classification of play and the printed dissemination of strategic knowledge. The compact format suggests portability for study and consultation, while the hand-colored diagrams underscore the pedagogical importance of visual positional clarity before standardized algebraic notation. Rebacked with original spine laid down; wear to board edges; internally sound with plates complete as noted; overall good condition. A scarce Napoleonic-era first edition that documents the consolidation of French chess theory at the height of its continental influence.

Item #16407

Price: $1,800.00