BOSSUET, Jacques-Bénigne

Lot 50
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Estimation :
3000 - 4000 EUR
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Result : 8 846EUR
BOSSUET, Jacques-Bénigne
Histoire des variations des églises protestantes. Paris, widow of Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1688. 2 volumes in-4 (265 x 192 mm) of [20] ff, 506 pp, [17] ff ; [4] ff, 680 pp, [21] ff. Red morocco, triple gilt fillet on the boards with gilt coat of arms in the center, richly decorated spine, gilt border on the edges and inside, gilt edges (period binding). ORIGINAL EDITION, of this key work of Bossuet which "intends above all to show the Protestants that they have not well understood the spirit of the Church. It is posed less as a polemical work than as a setting in point; also it avoids carefully the aggressive tone and the direct attacks. The work had an immense success and refutations appeared immediately after its publication." (Laffont-Bompiani, Dictionnaire des Oeuvres, III, p. 508). This copy presents corrections in pen. See Hubert Elie's article (Bulletin du Bibliophile, October 1954) on this subject: "as the work came off the presses but was not delivered to the public, the printer and the author realized that it still contained a certain number of errors, some of which were purely material and therefore attributable to the former, while others concerning the meaning, had to be attributed to the latter who, moreover, despite the very long time he had available to review his manuscript did not, however, give up, even after printing to make further improvements in style or to remove repetitions that he had not noticed earlier. Hence three kinds of rectifications which were made not by means of cardboards - which would undoubtedly have been too numerous - but with a pen on each of the copies". Superb and sulphurous copy bound (very probably by Boyet) in red morocco with the arms of HARLAY DE CHANVALLON, archbishop of Paris and "enemy" of Bossuet. Great lord, courtier, worldly and cynical, his morals and his way of life were not those that one could have expected from a person possessing such an office, and earned him enmities and oppositions, in particular from Fénelon and Bossuet. Fénelon said of him in his Letter to Louis XIV: "You have a corrupt, scandalous, incorrigible, false, malignant, artificious archbishop, enemy of all virtue, and who makes all good people groan". Some browned leaves, nerves slightly rubbed.
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