LÉGER (Jean). Histoire générale des Églises évangéliques des vallées de Piémont, ou vaudoises. Leiden, Jean Le Carpentier, 1669. 2 parts in one in-folio volume, red morocco, triple gilt fillet, coat of arms in the centre, spine decorated with a repeated crowned numeral, mottled edges (Binding of the period). First edition of the most famous and important early history of the Waldensians. The work is divided into two books, the first of which describes the discipline, doctrine and organisation of the Waldensian churches, and the second the persecutions they suffered from the Inquisition until 1664. It also covers the social, political and religious history of Piedmont, the Wars of Religion, the fauna and flora of the Alps, the Piedmontese dialect, etc. The illustrations, engraved in intaglio, include a frontispiece showing two Waldensians trampling the papal tiara and crozier, a portrait of the author, 34 figures in the text and a fold-out map of the three valleys of Piedmont engraved by J. Somer after Valerius Crassus. Of these engravings, four relate to Alpine flora and fauna, while the others - including three vigorous etchings by Cornelis Elandts, a follower of Rembrandt - mainly depict the atrocities and massacres perpetrated against the Waldensians by the troops of Charles-Emmanuel II of Savoy in 1655. A Savoy historian and champion of the Waldensian resistance, Jean Léger (1615-1670) escaped the massacres, but was forced to take refuge in Geneva and then the Netherlands, where he became pastor of the Walloon Church in Leiden. A precious red morocco copy bearing the arms and cipher of Colbert, with the handwritten bookplate of the Bibliotheca Colbertina (1728, no. 764). It later belonged to the collection of Denis Crozat (1751, n°3256), with his handwritten bookplate. Minor rubbing and spotting to the binding; small worm gallery in the upper margin of the last leaves. Brunet, III, 941 - Caillet, II, n°6406.