BOUVET. Les Manières admirables pour découvrir toutes sortes - Lot 140

BOUVET. Les Manières admirables pour découvrir toutes sortes de crimes et sortilèges. Avec l'instruction solide pour bien juger un procez criminel. Paris, Jean de La Caille, 1659. In-8, antique limp vellum (later binding). First edition of this "very rare book on witchcraft trials", containing very interesting chapters on how to give the question and on various crimes. (Caillet, n°1591; Dorbon, n°486; Guaïta, n°106.) One of the most curious chapters is on how to know when criminals are being questioned, when they have taken drugs or spells to protect them from torment, and what to do to make them suffer in order to make them confess their crimes. Of particular note are passages concerning robbery with homicide, incendiaries (punishable by death), the crime of fetardise which renders a man stupid, ignites his filthy desires, so that he is much more beast than man, etc. The author was provost general of the King's armies in Italy and of S. A. R. de Savoie. From the Maurice Garçon library (bookplate). The copy has been placed in the binding, the endpapers renewed. Mottling around the pages.