LAUNOY (Matthieu de) and Henry PENNETIER. La Déclaration et - Lot 122

LAUNOY (Matthieu de) and Henry PENNETIER. La Déclaration et refutation des fausses suppositions et perverses applications d'aucunes sentences des sainctes Ecritures, desquelles les Ministres se sont servis en ce dernier temps, à diviser la Chrêtienté. A Paris, chez Guillaume de La Nouë, 1582. In-8, fawn calf, five-ribbed spine decorated with a gilt fleuron between each rib, double gilt fillet framing the boards, large gilt corner irons and central plate on the boards, gilt edges (joins split, headcap torn off with lack of leather, corners worn). [24]-274 ff. Fine copy. Matthieu de LAUNOY was a 16th-century controversialist born in La Ferté-Alais (Seine-et-Oise). He embraced the Reformation in Geneva in 1560, and was admitted to the evangelical ministry after marrying. Pastor in various places, first in Heidelherg in 1573, then in Sedan, he had to flee the latter town because of an accusation of adultery brought against him; his flight earned him a sentence in absentia. He then returned to the Catholic Church, became a priest and received a canonry in Soissons. He was one of the founders of the League and one of its most ardent supporters, a member of the Council of Forty, and eventually of the Council of Sixteen. Forced to flee to avoid the reprisals of Mayenne, who had the most compromised of the Sixteen hanged, Launoy withdrew to Flanders and never ventured back to Paris. To justify his return to Catholicism, he published: La déclaration et réfutation des fausses suppositions...