L'heureuse conversion des huguenots à la foy catholique, où est répondu aux articles de la confession de foi des ministres avec la ste messe en françois

Rare first edition under this title, complete with the engraved title-page. The first edition of 1607, Remonstrance faicte au Roy Très Chrétien pour la réunion des religions à la foy catholique, was printed in Tournon in only 96 pages. This second edition, of which there were probably two issues from the same bookseller, was substantially revised and enlarged by the author.

Contemporary limp vellum with yapp edges, smooth spine, faded ink manuscript title to spine, original ties present, red speckled edges. Bookplate of the lawyer V[ictor] Duchâtaux, a bibliophile of the second half of the 19th century, to front pastedown. Manuscript ownership inscription dated 1661 at foot of engraved title-page.

Two tiny ink spots on pp. 57 and 209 affecting one letter each, small marginal wormhole on p. 417 not affecting text, a fine copy.

On p. 58, the passage "not in the traditions of the Roman Church! but in their own Bible, which I made the judge of all my designs, and the rule of my will" (our own translation) is underlined in brown ink, probably in the same hand as the ownership inscription.

Fourteen years after Henri IV's conversion in 1593, Jacques d'Illaire, a commander of 100 men living in the historic region of Vivarais, renounced the Reformed faith in a packed church following Sunday mass. This work in the form of a memoir was first published in 1607 and reprinted shortly thereafter, earning its author "some celebrity," according to Eugène Arnaud .

The King, to whom this work is dedicated, sent him his congratulations in 1608:

"I have received such joy and contentment at the news of your conversion to the Catholic Church, followed by that of several persons, and that you have accompanied it with such fine works as you have brought to light on the same subject, that I have wished to express this to you by the present letter and by the same means to thank you for the book you have dedicated to me, judging well that it may bring much fruit both to those who would desire to imitate you in this holy and praiseworthy action, and to others who would wish to partake of it. You have thus shown that you can wield both pen and sword with equal skill, as circumstances require." (our own translation)

Others would not show the same enthusiasm upon reading this work, notably the doctors of the Sorbonne, who protested against the French-language mass proposed by Jacques d'Illaire, included in the present copy.

A superb early seventeenth-century edition which gave rise to a theological dispute over the mass in the vernacular, by a newly converted Catholic, loyal to Henri IV.