Why it matters

The Loudun affair — the Ursuline convent's claimed possessions and the 1634 burning of parish priest Urbain Grandier — is one of the most notorious witchcraft prosecutions of early modern France, and Aubin's account is the foundational sceptical treatment, arguing the possessions were feigned and Grandier the victim of a conspiracy reaching to Richelieu. First published in Amsterdam in 1693 by Abraham Wolfgang under the title Histoire des diables de Loudun, the text was reissued through the eighteenth century; this 1716 Amsterdam printing carries the more polemical Cruels effets de la vengeance du cardinal de Richelieu title at the head.

Why we're looking

A contemporary-calf copy with the trial frontispiece and both title-pages, from an ILAB dealer who catalogues to bibliography — but on relative value this reads as fairly priced rather than cheap: the EUR 500 ask sits between the only two other copies of the title currently on AbeBooks, a 1752 reissue lacking its frontispiece at EUR 230 and a rebound 1694 Wolfgang printing at EUR 821.49. The interest here is object and provenance (armorial ex-libris and a named jurist's library stamp, per the seller) rather than a gap to comps.

Watch out for

The seller is upfront that the hinges are cracked and the calf rubbed, with scattered foxing throughout — solid but a working copy, and worth asking for photographs of the joints before committing at this level. Note this 1716 is a later printing, not the first: the text first appeared at Amsterdam in 1693 from Abraham Wolfgang, and at least one auction house has catalogued a 1716 copy as "First Edition," so don't let that framing travel with the book. The ex-libris and the ink library stamp on the title-page are provenance to some buyers and defacement to others.