GALLICANISM BOUND FOR DE THOU JUNIOR
[BOUTREUX D’ESTIAU, Jacques de.]
De la puissance roialle sur la police de l’Eglise.
Paris, Pierre Durand, 1625.
[bound with:]
FILESAC, Jean. Regia maiestas sacro-sancta. Interprete Joanne Filesaco theologo Parisiensi. Paris, Joseph Bouillerot, 1626.
Two works in one volume, 8vo, Boutreux d’Estiau: pp. [2], 174, [2 (blank)]; woodcut armorial of Louis XIII to title-page, woodcut initial and typographical headpiece; Filesac: pp. 61, [1], [2 (blank)]; woodcut vignette to title-page, woodcut initial and headpiece; second work a little browned with a few spots, otherwise very good copies; bound in contemporary French brown calf with the arms of Jacques-Auguste de Thou and Gasparde de La Chastre (Olivier 216 fer 8) blocked in gilt to boards, spine gilt in compartments, lettered directly in gilt in two and with the gilt monogram IAGG (Olivier 216 fer 9) in the others, edges stained red; joints cracked, corners bumped, a few small dents and abrasions to boards; engraved armorial Caumartin bookplate to front pastedown, pencil shelfmark to front pastedown, red ink stamp to both title-pages, nineteenth-century notes in French to flyleaf.
A pair of uncommon works defending the French king’s authority over the Church, in a binding for Jacques-Auguste II de Thou and later in the renowned Caumartin library.
The Gallican movement in France was strong in the early seventeenth century, in the wake of the assassination of Henri IV, resulting in a wave of publications in support of royal autonomy from papal authority. The first work in this volume was produced on behalf of the Chapter of Angers against its ultramontane bishop, Charles de Miron (an Italian translation was published by Durand in the same year). The work is often attributed to Jacques Boutreux, sieur d’Estiau, and sometimes to a canon of the cathedral, Pierre Syette.
Jean Filesac (1556–1638) was a Gallican theologian at the Sorbonne and a canon of Notre-Dame; in this work he contributed to the Sorbonne’s condemnation of an Italian Jesuit treatise promoting papal supremacy above that of kings. A second edition was printed in the same year, extending to seventy-five pages.
Provenance:
1. Jacques-Auguste II de Thou (1609–1677); although the arms and monogram are those of his parents, they had died in 1616 and 1617, before this book was printed. The de Thou library was put up for sale in 1679 (this book appears in the Catalogus bibliothecae Thuanae, p. 239).
2. Possibly Cardinal Armand-Gaston-Maximilien de Rohan Soubise (1674–1749), whose library was inherited by Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise (1715–1787), with the shelfmark ‘C.P.T.4.j.382’ written in pencil on the front pastedown; this style of shelfmark is usually assigned to the eighteenth-century Rohan-Soubise period of ownership, but this book must have left the collection well before the 1789 Soubise sale as it subsequently belonged to:
3. Jean-François Le Fèvre de Caumartin (1668–1733), with his engraved armorial bookplate. He was bishop of Vannes and then Blois, and royal librarian. His substantial library was sold in January 1735; this volume was lot 1690. It is possible that the book was reacquired by the Rohan-Soubise library after the Caumartin sale, though it does not appear in the 1789 Soubise sale catalogue.
4. ‘Hoc est siglum meum’, unidentified red ink stamp to both title-pages. A very similar stamp was used by the artist and collector (including of armorial bindings) Ernest-Gustave (or Aglaüs) Bouvenne (1829–1903; Lugt L.361), which combined the letters of Bouvenne in a similar way; he was also the author of a book about historical monograms (Paris, 1870). Lugt L.4915 is another similar example, also printed in red, though still with different initials.
Boutreux d’Estiau: OCLC and Library Hub together record only one copy in the UK (BL) and two in the US (Yale, Newberry). Filesac: no copies traced outside Continental Europe.
USTC 6027601 and 6031932.