Le Recueil contenant l'histoire des choses plus memorables advenues sous la ligue

Small octavo of (16) leaves, 1015 pp.

Flexible vellum with overlapping edges, ribbed spine, hand-lettered title on spine. Contemporary binding.

140 x 90 mm.

Goulard, Simon (1543-1628). [Short Memoirs of the League under Henry III and Henry IV].

The collection containing the history of the most memorable events that occurred during the League. With a notable exhortation to Kings and Christian States added at the end.

Newly printed, 1589.

Extremely rare first edition of this famous text.

Simon Goulard (1543-1628), a Protestant controversialist established in Geneva since 1566, began publishing a collection of memorable events that occurred under the League that was formed and arose against the Reformed religion. These “Short Memoirs on the League” were regularly expanded with new items as the revolt developed.

An expatriate minister in Geneva, a precious figure for the Genevan Church which always refused to part with him, Simon Goulard was, between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, a key figure in the history of Calvin’s city. As moderator of the Company of Pastors, he presided over the destinies of the Reformation and, above all, opened new horizons for it: for Goulard, beyond his pastoral duties, played the poet, translator, editor, transmitter of knowledge and texts—what was called a “polygrapher.” This intellectual thirst led him to explore fields that Calvinism might have found strange: demonology, astrology, but also the intersections of disciplines (physics, medicine, etc.) on which scientific Geneva of the eighteenth century would be built.

He reappears in 1589, the date of this original edition, as chaplain to the Genevan troops during the war against Savoy. In 1607, he would replace Beza as moderator of the Company of Pastors—making him Calvin’s second successor as “head” of the Genevan Reformation and earning him some troubles with the other authorities of the time.

In 1595, when Goulard published Montaigne’s Essays in Geneva to try to revive the printing industry, it was an act of provocation. Simon Goulard was an unparalleled transmitter of texts. He accomplished an extensive work as a humanist, translating Plutarch, Justus Lipsius, Xenophon.

According to O. Pot, S. Goulard inherited from Beza the “project of a Protestant poetics,” and his contribution to the preface of the Spiegel..., a verse encyclopedia by G. Fabri, suggests the intention of founding a Protestant literary academy to extend across Calvinist Northern Europe.

After a long period of oblivion, historians have rediscovered him.

Up until the 1950s–1960s, Goulard was known only to a small circle of specialists. Then researchers, such as Denis Crouzet, who became interested in the Wars of Religion realized that his historical works were a mine of information on that period.

“Whatever passions may have driven Goulard, his work, which draws on documents from all parties, is of inestimable value. On its own, it is a veritable library.” (H. Hauser. Les sources de l'histoire de France, no. 1566).

Precious volume bound at the time for François de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1558-1614), first cousin of King Henry IV, with his autograph signature on the title leaf “F(rançois) P(rince) de Conti”.

He was the third son of Louis I de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, founder of the House of Condé, and his first wife Éléonore de Roye (1536-1564). Marquis de Conti, François was raised in a family firmly attached to Protestantism. A few weeks after the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, he converted to Catholicism. He lived at the court of Henry III, who favored him by making him Knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit in 1579 and elevating him to the dignity of Prince of Conti in 1581. During the uprising of the League, he showed his support for his cousin Henry of Navarre and left the court in 1587 to follow his party. In 1589, after the assassination of Henry III, he became the second-ranking figure in the kingdom. He was the first to recognize his cousin Henry IV as king and fought alongside him in battles against the League. At Henry IV’s wish, he married, as his second wife in 1605, Louise Marguerite de Lorraine, daughter of Duke Henry of Guise and Catherine de Clèves. He died in 1614.

The volume then entered the library of Armand de Rohan-Guémené (1695-1762), with bookplate.

Appointed archbishop-duke of Reims on May 28, 1722, Armand de Rohan-Guémené crowned Louis XV on October 25 of the same year.

Provenance: François de Bourbon, Prince of Conti (1558-1614), cousin and supporter of King Henry IV, Armand-Jules de Rohan-Guémené, and Régis de la Colombière.