La religion des Hollandois, representée en plusieurs lettres écrites par un officier de l'armée du Roy, à un pasteur & professeur en theologie de Berne.

12mo: [8]-204 pp. (occ. sm. stains a.o. on title and p. 1, marg. water stain on very last ff., marg. tear without loss of text on f. R3).

Contemp. mottled calf, gilt-orn. spine with raised bands, red and brown spr. edgers (rubbed, endcaps missing, wormtracks to lower spine, corners bumped with loss of leather to one of them).

First French edition, rare, of this propagandistic work attributed to G.B. Stoppa or Stouppe (1620-1692), Lieutenant in a Swiss mercenary regiment. He was trained in London as a Reformed minister, worked as a spy for Oliver Cromwell, then took part in the French occupying forces in the Netherlands (1672-1673), where he wrote this work "commissioned by Louis XIV, justifying the occupation and indicting the religious identity and toleration by Dutch magistrates of religious dissenters, especially their lax attitude towards a work like the "Tractatus theologico-politicus" (Van de Ven). He describes Spinoza as "un homme illustre & sçavant, qui à ce que l'on m'a asseuré, a un grand nombre de sectateurs [...], qui est né juif, qui s'appelle Spinola [sic], qui n'a point abjuré la religion des juifs, ny embrassé la religion chrêtienne; aussi il est tres-méchant juif, & n'est pas meilleur chrêstien" (p. 91), and comments the "Tractatus theologo positivus" [sic], which he accused "de détruire toutes les religions, & particulierement la judaïque & la chrêtienne, & d'introduire l'atheïsme, le libertinage, & la liberté de toutes les religions [...]" (p. 92). He was an intermediary in the plan to bring Spinoza to the French headquarters in Utrecht, during the last summer of 1673, and met him to give a passport signed by Louis II de Bourbon, "le Grand Condé".
Ref. Barbier IV:241. - Cp. Van der Linde 63, Willems 1878 (pirated ed.: Cologne, P. Marteau, 1673). - Van der Ven 459 (biogr. note on the author).
Prov. "Sezarge Meffray" (ms. entry on title), probably Jacques or Louis de Meffray de Césarges, who served in Louis XIV's wars (ref. La Chesnaye des Bois, Dict. de la noblesse, X:627). - Monogram "CVE" (stamp).