Michel Le Vassor
Histoire du Regne de Louis XIII
Brunel, Amsterdam, Vol. 5, 1703.
Binding: 10 x 16.5 x 4 cm. Calf, banded spine with gilt tooling, worn. Rubricated title page, engraved frontispiece and portraits.
This attractive book is volume 5 of a 12-volume history written by Michel Le Vassor, (1646–1718), a French Protestant, historian, and critic of Louis XIV.
Through his various writings and membership in the circle of Pierre Jurieu, he underscored the instability in the European state system caused by the trend towards increasing absolutism. Jurieu (1637-1713) was a radical French Protestant leader who dominated many of those who had fled France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and encouraged William of Orange in his ambitions towards the English throne.
The book is dedicated to Lord Wharton, Comptroller of the Royal Household when William became king of England, and who was to serve as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1708-1710. As Earl of Rathfarnham, Wharton leased the grounds for the first paper mill in Ireland in the early 1690s. The unsigned engravings are very good, and the book is annotated in pencil throughout. [pics: JM2 023-026]
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