Tocsain Contre Les Massacreurs -

First edition of Tocsain contre les massacreurs, a Protestant pamphlet openly accusing the royal family of the Saint-Barthélemy massacre.

Brunet, V, 872; Ch. Nodier, Bulletin du bibliophile, IIe série, n°72; Catalogue Stroelin, II, 1140; Catalogue duc de La Vallière, V, 5125.

"A very rare work, containing the account of all the misfortunes of which the Protestants were victims and which made our France a Turkey" (Cat. Stroelin).

Le Tocsain contre les Massacreurs is the first Huguenot pamphlet to directly accuse members of the royal family of being responsible for the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre on the night of August 24, 1572.

The author violently attacks Catherine de Médicis, pointing to her as the main person responsible for the murder of her subjects.

The aim of the work is an appeal to the French Princes and to Queen Elizabeth of England to put an end to tyranny in France.

In Le Tocsain contre les massacreurs, "the author puts forward the idea of an ambitious mother who seeks to capture power for her own benefit, while diverting the future king to futile and vain pleasures. Catherine is seen as having sought to spread Machiavelli's precepts at court, and in particular among her sons" (P. A. Mellet, Les traités monarchomaques, p.256).

The author offers a realistic description of the pain that the Reformed endured on the night of August 24, 1572: "It can be said that the city was exposed to murder, robbery and incest; and this by the King's command, & at the instigation of the Queen his mother... There were nearly two thousand people in Paris, some of whom were stunned in their beds with swords, others strangled & dragged through the streets, & thrown into the water.

"Of all the writings that despair and fury inspired in the Reformed on the occasion of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, this one, whose author is unknown, even to M. Barbier and Fr. Lelong, seems to me to be one of the most appropriate to arouse interest for the circumstances and the accuracy of the account, the elevation of the views and the general tone of the style. It is dedicated to the most illustrious Christian princes, republics and magistrates, making profession of the Gospel, and its beginning, as simple as it is majestic, offers a model of period for our language which none of our best writers has perhaps surpassed. [It is] an oratorical narration of the principal events of these disastrous times, going back to the conspiracy of Amboise or even to Henri II and François I, and descending to the year 1577, the dawn of the league. Nowhere have I seen the true causes and the principal agents of the Saint-Barthélemy more clearly exposed" (A. F. L. S. de Beaumont-Brison).

A precious copy preserved in its attractive antique morocco binding by Nicolas-Denis Derome.

Highly prized from the 18th century onwards, the rare surviving copies of this precious first edition were bound with care and sometimes, as here, with luxury. The work of Nicolas-Denis Derome, one of the most famous French bookbinders of the Ancien Régime, the antique red morocco binding covering this copy of Tocsain contre les massacreurs is of a particular elegance.

From the library of René-Charles Guilbert de Pixerécourt, playwright and bibliophile (Catalogue, 1839, n°1918).