Histoire générale de la naissance & des progrès de la Compagnie de Jésus, et Analyse de ses Constitutions & Privilèges

First edition.

Armorial copy of the Dukes of Luynes, at this date, most certainly of Marie Charles Louis d'Albert de Luynes, 5th Duke of Luynes. Armorial copies of the Luynes always bear only the heraldic device of the crowned lion on the spine in the 18th century.
Full glazed and marbled brown calf binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with the heraldic device of the Dukes of Luynes, with crowned lion. Red morocco title and volume labels. Small crack to lower joint at head of volume II. On the lower joint of volume 3, crack along one compartment for 2cm. In volume IV, small cracks to joints at foot, for a few millimeters. P.403, volume II, hole with loss of one letter. A dampstain trace in the margin of the title page of volume I. Despite these minor flaws, very fine copy.
Bookplate of the château de Dampierre, residence of the Luynes for 350 years. An 18th-century bookplate has been covered by old paper.
History of the Society of Jesus from its origins, violently hostile to the Jesuits. Numerous documents are analyzed therein. The work amply demonstrates the despotism of the Society and its complete corruption of the French political system, its plots throughout Europe. The book reveals a critique of absolute monarchy and a parliamentary vision of the political system.
In the late 1750s and early 1760s, the Jesuits suffered attacks from Jansenists, Gallicans and parliamentarians, then from the philosophers of the Encyclopedia. The financial scandal following the bankruptcy of the Jesuit Antoine Lavalette was a good opportunity for Louis XV to prohibit the Society by royal decision and banish it from France in 1763-1764. The Jesuits had already been expelled from Portugal in 1759 and would be from Spain in 1767.
Louis-Adrien Le Paige, lawyer at Parliament and counselor to the Prince de Conti, and Christophe Coudrette, were both Jansenist abbés. Their book was therefore published in a very tense context for the Jesuits and thus presents itself as a series of revelations about their history that would justify their annihilation.