Lyon, Pierre Rigaud, 1610.
3 parts in 1 volume in-8: (24) pp., 550 pp., (2); (8) (including intermediate title, epistle, and 2 blank), 93 pp.; (3) pp. (intermediate title, epistle), 32 pp., (64) pp. (the last 2 blank). Tear at lower corner of p. 211 with effect on some letters, some stains. Contemporary soft vellum, smooth spine with handwritten title, handwritten title on lower edge. Binding of the time.
172 x 117 mm.
“Very rare edition and the most complete” (with the second being exactly alike) of this rare and sought-after book. On his copy St. de Guaita added this note “ Among the fiercest demonologists of his time, H. Boguet stands out for his naïve cruelty coupled with imperturbable foolishness… His Instruction long held authority in the Parliaments and patrolled areas. .” (Caillet, I, 1322).
He was one of the most famous demonologists, appointed chief judge of Saint-Claude in Franche-Comté, a position that allowed him to preside over several dozen witch trials and execute 28 alleged witches or wizards.
” ‘What explains the rarity of Boguet’s book is that the members of the family of this peculiar magistrate long drove themselves into ruin to buy back the copies en masse. In turn, Boguet was sentenced to the flames… by his own…
Boguet’s book had an immense authority, Parliament members studied this golden manual of the little judge of Saint Claude… who made his country a desert. Never was there a more scrupulously exterminating judge…’ Stanilas de Guaita.” (Caillet)
” Henri Boguet, born in Dôle, around the middle or end of the 16th century, and chief judge of the Terre St Oyan de Joux, known as St Claude, in Burgundy. His works long served as the torture code to persecute the unfortunate accused of witchcraft.
It is said he was in turn burned for witchcraft.” (Caillet)
Third augmented edition of one of the rarest and most famous works on witchcraft. This book, the fruit of his own experience, is a very complete manual of legal procedure supported by numerous examples.
This edition, the most complete, with the “Six advis”, is the most sought-after. Yve-Plessis, 851.
A very famous demonologist, he is the author of the Execrable Discourse of Sorcerers (1603), re-edited twelve times in twenty years. The first ten editions cover the period 1602-1610, which also corresponds to one of the first periods of organized persecution in Franche-Comté (1603-1614), favored by princely legislation (Archdukes’ edict in 1604), parliamentary (repressive publication of 1608), and popular participation. The first repression actually begins in 1598, originating in Boguet’s jurisdiction and lasting four years.
In Instruction for a judge , he addresses a judge of Salins in 70 articles that deal with the type of action to be conducted in witchcraft cases. This part of the work exerted considerable influence on the magistrates of the time. Judges consult it, Parliament has it in its library.
In Six advis … , written in 1608, very concrete accusations are discussed.
Although he opposed the systematic application of torture and cruelty in interrogations, Boguet nevertheless wanted to put all acts of witchcraft in the “same bag” to eradicate it.
About the Satanic sect: ” this hydra well deserves that judges be instituted to seriously cut off all its heads, and so that no more are reborn “.
Boquet was also one of the first to judge nine cases of lycanthropy (werewolves) in Saint-Claude.
His wisdom, learning, and fairness were praised, and some compared him to a new Hercules.
Gaspar de Gin sang, in talking about Boguet:
Greece once sat Alcide among the Gods
For having overcome the monsters of the Earth;
And you, taming Hell, which war troubles us
What place do you expect in the Heavens.
His reputation as a fierce burner has traversed the centuries until Dom Benoit and L. Duparchy in 1892 restored the truth. Of the 1500 victims attributed to him, he left, after a trial began against Françoise Secrétain , about forty witches perished atrociously on the pyre, forgetting to grant them the benefit of the retentum.
A double legend claims that like Nicolas Rémy, Boguet ended up on the pyre and that his family secretly bought most copies of his Speech .
Today Rossell Hope Robbins suggests that some of his relatives secretly sympathized with witchcraft.
Precious copy bound in contemporary soft vellum coming from the library Ballemant with ex-libris from the 17th century.
