PASCAL Blaise Les Provinciales, ou les lettres escrites par Louis de Montalte, à un provincial de ses amis, et aux RR. PP. Jésuites sur le sujet de la Morale, et de la Politique de ces Pères.

Cioranescu, III, 51935; Tchemerzine-Scheler, V, 68; Willems, 1218 (possibly this copy, a red morocco by Bauzonnet-Trauz mentioned)

Elzevirian edition, the first in 12mo format, published in the year of the original, and the first with continuous pagination.

First-issue copy, with ‘escrites’ on the title page (not ‘ecrites’), the Advertissment mentioning only XVII letters, ‘la faculté de Paris’ on the first page (rather than ‘la faculté de Théologie de Paris’), the error ‘moines mendiants’ instead of ‘religieux mendiants’ on page 3 (these last two features are underlined in pink in our copy).

This edition was printed by Louis and Daniel Elzevier in Amsterdam under the fictitious address of Pierre de La Vallée in Cologne; it is not an invention of the publishers who merely adopted the pseudonyms of the French publishers.

In addition to the Advertissment and the eighteen letters of the original edition, this edition is followed by an appendix (with its own pagination). This appendix contains 15 polemical pieces attributed to Pascal, Nicole and Arnauld, beginning with ‘Advis de Messieurs les curez de Paris.’

Provenance: Nicolas Yemeniz (1783–1871), bookplate on the reverse of the upper endpaper – Bibliothèque du Duc de Chartres (label by Pierre Berès on the inside front cover).