PASCAL (Blaise). Les Provinciales, ou les lettres écrites 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. Cologne, Pierre de la Vallée, 1657. In-4, fawn calf, ornate spine, speckled edges (period binding). First edition. This copy brings together the eighteen Lettres provinciales collected in the summer of 1657 under a general title, with a warning by Nicole, after having first appeared separately between January 23, 1656 and March 24, 1657 for sale under the cloak. The first four letters - the only ones to have been reprinted, according to Faugère - are in first issue, except for the third, which is in reprint; the twelfth letter is followed by its Réfutation; the seventeenth is also in first issue, in 8 pp.; the Avertissement, on the other hand, mentions XVIII letters, characteristic of second issue. Bound at the head of the volume are Antoine Arnaud's two third-edition letters to the Duc de Luynes: Lettre à une personne de condition sur ce qui est arrivé depuis peu, dans une paroisse de Paris, à un seigneur de la Cour and Seconde lettre à un duc et pair de France..., both addressed to Paris, 1657. Finally, we have bound four polemical pieces following Les Provinciales: l'Advis de messieurs les curez de Paris à messieurs les curez des autres diocèses de France, by Nicole, Arnauld and Pascal; la Suite de l'extrait de plusieurs mauvaises propositions des nouveaux casuistes (the various parts of which have been bound out of order); Lettre d'un curé de Rouen à un curé de la campagne; and Traduction d'une lettre escrite par Messire Jacques Boonen, archevesque de Malines, précédée de la version latine de ladite lettre. Long early handwritten annotation, delivering an Opinion by Voltaire on the Jesuits, on the verso of the title of the Provinciales. From the Vauquelin de la Brosse library at Château de Drumare, with bookplate. Covers and corners slightly worn, uniformly browned, a few small marginal wet spots. Maire, II, 165-168 (pieces nos. 1, 2, 4, 6) - Tchemerzine, V, 62 - Rochebilière, n°111 - Chatelain, n°139.