Les voeux d'un patriote

Second edition of this text which was first published in installments in Amsterdam in 1689, under the title: Les soupirs de la France esclave, which comprised 15 memoirs. Only 13 memoirs are included in this collection.
Contemporary full marbled calf binding. Smooth spine handsomely decorated with roulettes and fleurons. Tan morocco title label. Library label at head. Minor damage with losses to head of spine.
Work by pastor and polemicist Pierre Jurieu (1637-1713), the Mémoires constitute a violent critique of Louis XIV's government. All the denounced abuses are found there, both of absolutism and of the Church's power. The author deplores the disintegration of the nobility and advocates the sovereignty of peoples and the subordination of kings to the Estates-General, principles that would be found again in the French Revolution. This is certainly why this reissue appeared in 1788.