Jean NOVI DE CAVEIRAC

First edition.
Contemporary marbled blonde half sheep binding. Spine with raised bands, decorated. Fawn morocco title label. Upper joint cracked at head and foot for 10 cm. Rubbing to boards.
18th-century armorial bookplate: Bibliothèque de M. de Cangey, gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre de M. le Comte d'Artois.
The work was originally written in response to a book by Antoine Court (1695-1760), Lettre d'un patriote sur la tolérance civile des protestans de France et sur les avantages qui en résulteroient pour le royaume (1756); this is why it is written in the vocative. The author justifies, by means of a serious historical and economic study, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. "The author makes a great display of erudition and knowledge in matters of political economy. The Dissertation offers curious research" (Michaud). This defense of intolerance provides very interesting remarks on demography. The author finally gives economic solutions to emerge from this demographic threat. The dissertation on the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre denies that it was a religious affair, and even the number of deaths, and seeks to diminish its historical importance. The book aroused widespread indignation, notably from Voltaire.

First edition of these three rare memoirs on Protestantism, all three published without editorial indication.
Contemporary full blonde calf binding. Smooth spine decorated. Red morocco title label. A volume label is present, the book was meant to be shelved among a collection of pamphlets and memoirs. Joints cracked and split. Headcaps worn. Corners bumped.
Novi de Cabeirac studies in his memoir the effects of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. We know he was fanatically intolerant, even though his study of demography and economics is serious.
The second memoir pleads the cause of Protestants before the royal power and denounces the horror of the crimes that were perpetrated against them.
The identity of the author is still debated. The work is sometimes attributed to Antoine Court, a central figure of the Desert Church. Born in 1695 on the Ardèche borders of the Cévennes and died in 1760 in Lausanne, he was at the heart of the dramas engendered by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. A clandestine preacher, then consecrated pastor by a former Camisard, Pierre Corteiz, Antoine Court was, after the Cevennes revolt, one of the restorers of French Protestantism. Denouncing prophetism, he organized at Montèzes, near Monoblet, in the Cevennes region, the first synod of the Desert in order to reestablish the discipline of the reformed churches. Hostile to violence and an advocate of passive resistance, Court defended throughout his life the cause of the French Protestant community and freedom of conscience. To this end, he published the Patriote Français et Impartial in 1752. In his Histoire des troubles des Cévennes, published in the year of his death, he established himself as one of the first reformed historians of the Camisards war. Antoine Court had therefore published in 1752 this book entitled Le patriote français et impartial in response to the letter from the Bishop of Agen to the Controller General Machault d'Arnouville, promoting an attitude of intolerance toward the reformed. It is true that the Lettre d'un patriote, circulated four years later, presents some similarities with the previous work. Besides the word patriote which raises questions, certain parts seem very close. But what reasons could have pushed Antoine Court to reiterate four years later his defense of the Protestant community in a quite similar work though much more reduced?" (Link to the article at the bottom of this notice).
The third memoir wants to vindicate the Catholic religion and attacks the writings and persons who dare to defend Protestants, and denies the negative effects of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It is in defense against the second memoir of this collection: Lettre d'un patriote, that Novi de Caveirac will write his famous Apologie de Louis XIV.