Royal Heraldry in Copper: Morin de la Masserie’s Armorial of Louis XIII’s Knights of the Saint-Esprit, Paris, 1623 MOUSEION CURATOR NOTE “A court book of names, shields, and ceremony: each copperplate translates rank into emblem, and emblem into memory. The black line of Firens’s burin becomes here a register of Bourbon favour—the visible grammar of loyalty under Louis XIII.” THE BOOK MORIN DE LA MASSERIE, Jacques. Les Armes & blasons de chevaliers de l’ordre du Saint Esprit creez par Louys XIII Roy de France et de Navarre. Paris: Pierre Firens, 1623. Almost entirely engraved, with a title, the arms of Louis XIII, Henri de Bourbon, François de La Rochefoucauld, 65 knights of the Order of the Saint-Esprit, and 10 officers—78 arms and blazons finely engraved in black on copper by Pierre Firens. Guigard, 691. In-4 (260 × 170 mm): engraved title-frontispiece, [7] ff., 78 ff. of engraved armorials, [1] p. privilege. Small quarto, 26 × 17 cm. 4 leaves, comprising engraved title-frontispiece, dedication, avertissement, and table; 78 engraved plates; 1 leaf of royal privilege. BOOK DESCRIPTION A refined heraldic monument of the early Bourbon court, Morin de la Masserie’s Armes & blasons records the knights and commanders of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit created by Louis XIII at the chapter held in the church of the Augustins in Paris on 31 December 1619. The Order itself, founded by Henri III in 1578, was the senior and most prestigious chivalric order of the French monarchy, its blue ribbon giving rise to the celebrated expression cordon bleu. The volume is less a conventional printed book than an engraved ceremonial archive. Its sequence of armorial plates gives material form to the hierarchy of the realm: the king, princes of the blood, great officers, and selected nobles appear not as portraits but as coats of arms—compressed genealogies of lineage, service, and proximity to power. The book’s title itself announces its political purpose: the knights were “creez par Louys XIII Roy de France et de Navarre,” a phrase that makes royal creation the animating act of the volume. Pierre Firens, the Paris engraver and publisher, gives the work its distinctive character. The plates are not merely heraldic diagrams; they are exercises in disciplined visual authority. In the context of Louis XIII’s reign, such a book belongs to the same world as court ceremony, noble proof, dynastic display, and the administrative codification of honour. It is a portable chapter hall: the Augustins ceremony translated into copper and paper. CONDITION REPORT Binding: eighteenth-century half vellum with corners; corners rubbed. Good condition. Engraved title cut out and remounted. Small losses to the dedication leaf, restored. Lateral dampstaining to several gatherings; some spotting. One plate lacking a corner. The photographs should be consulted, as they form an integral part of the condition report. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION The importance of the work lies in its fusion of heraldry, printmaking, and royal ceremony. The Order of the Saint-Esprit was limited and intensely selective; its membership comprised the king as sovereign grand master, ecclesiastical commanders, officers, and knights drawn from the highest nobility. In this context, Morin’s armorial is not simply a reference book. It is a record of admission into one of the monarchy’s most coveted symbolic bodies. The Order’s motto, “Duce et Auspice”—“under the guidance and protection [of the Holy Spirit]”—is an apt key to the volume: divine invocation, royal authority, and noble identity are made to converge in a language of shields.