Jean Gautier de Faget, sous les initiales J. G. D. M. F. M. - Relation apologique et historique, contenant l’Ordre & l’établissement de la Société des - 1738

Fine copy.

Rare 1738 original edition of this important apologia for Freemasonry, generally attributed to the physician and writer Jean Gautier de Faget. The work constitutes one of the first French texts devoted to the defense and description of the Society of Freemasons. It notably sets forth the organization of the society, its assemblies and the ceremonies related to the reception of a new fellow member.

IRONIC ANSWER TO THE CRITICS OF FREEMASONRY, notably those of René Hérault, inspector of the judicial police who, in December 1737, published a disclosure of Masonic secrets in order to ridicule them, to present them as burdened with prejudices and as based on erroneous sources. The present Relation, which defends English Freemasonry in its deistic, scholarly and Epicurean form, was the only Masonic publication placed on the index in 1739. It also appeared in the same year in the Luxembourg periodical La Clef du cabinet.

DOCTOR TRAINED IN PARIS, JEAN GAUTIER DE FAGET, author of this relation according to Jean Sgard, led a wandering life in Europe. In London in the 1720s, he frequented French Protestant scholars associated with the Freemasons, and met Abbé Prévost, whom he accompanied in the United Provinces as secretary. He subsequently resumed a wandering life, his presence being notably attested in Paris in 1738–1740, where he probably published the present Relation under the fictitious address of Dublin.

Copy featuring a brown half-leather binding with covers in marbled/dominoté paper, dating from after the edition.

Fine copy.