[DESIRÉ (Artus). Passevent parisien respondant à Pasquin romain. De la vie de ceux qui se disent vivre selon la réformation de l'Évangile, & sont allez demourer au païs jadis de Savoye : & maintenant soubz les princes de Berne, & seigneurs de Geneve : fait en forme de dialogue. De nouveau reveu & augmenté. Lyon, s.n., 1556. In-16, brown morocco, coat of arms in the centre, spine decorated with repeated arms, smooth edges (Binding of the period). Extremely rare Lyon edition of this biting satire of Protestant morals in the form of a dialogue - "as are such scoundrels, some Anabaptists, others Svinglists, others Lutherans, others Melanthonists, others Calvinists, & others Zebedeists; others Libertines, & most of all Atheists & without God" (p. 112). "This satirical dialogue, full of invectives against Calvin and his followers, was attributed by Du Verdier, according to the Lyon edition, to Ant. Cathalan or Catalan, a Cordelier from Albigensia, to whom Calvin replied in his Reformation; on the contrary, it is said to be by Artus Désiré, according to a passage in the comedy of the Sick Pope" (Brunet). The USTC lists only two copies of this edition (Arsenal and Rouen). A very fine copy bearing the arms of Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553-1617), together with those of his second wife Gasparde de La Châtre (1577-1616). A statesman, jurist, historian and bibliophile, he was the author of a remarkable Histoire de son temps, considered to be a French historical monument. He had built up one of the finest and most important encyclopaedic and scholarly libraries of his century, comprising more than 6,600 volumes at the time of his death, most of which were richly bound. His library was sold en bloc by his son to the Marquis de Ménars, Colbert's brother-in-law, in 1680, then resold to the Duc de Rohan in 1706, and finally dispersed in 1789 at the sale of the Prince de Rohan-Soubise (in which this edition of Passevent appears under no. 1584). From the libraries of the Marquis de Ganay, Ernest Stroehlin and Édouard Franchetti, with bookplates. Brunet, IV, 421 - USTC 10219.