THE ABBESS AND THE KING
BEAUVILLIERS, Marie de.
Conférences spirituelles d’une supérieure à ses religieuses ... d’après un manuscrit revu et mis en ordre par L.G., curé de V. …
Paris, Moquet et Cie for Toulouse, 1838.
12mo, pp. [4], xx, 244; small mark at foot of title where label removed, a little light foxing, last few leaves slightly browned; very good in contemporary pale calf, gilt frames and corner-pieces to covers, spine gilt in compartments with lettering-piece, marbled edges and endpapers; upper joint split but firm; bookplate of P. de la Morandière to front pastedown, gilt arms to covers, pencil note at foot of p. xx.
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Conférences spirituelles d’une supérieure à ses religieuses ... d’après un manuscrit revu et mis en ordre par L.G., curé de V. …
Scarce second edition (first 1837, also rare) of this spiritual guide by Marie de Beauvilliers (1574–1667), edited from a manuscript by the historian l'abbé Louis Gaudreau (1798–1872) and including a short biography of the author.
Marie joined the convent at Montmartre in Paris in 1590 and shortly afterwards became Henri IV’s lover when he took over the abbey to house his army during his siege of Paris. Henri installed Marie as abbess of Montmartre around 1598 and during her long tenure she restored the abbey to moral and physical good order.
The Conférences found here cover, for example, faith, the renouncement of worldly affairs, the suppression of passions, prayer, humility, poverty, the imitation of Christ, and instruction for Advent, Epiphany, Lent, and other feasts and saints’ days.
OCLC shows only two copies, at the BnF and BM Lyons.
