877J i–iii. DUFRANC, Louis & Omer-Louis-François Joly de Fleury

I. Extraits des registres du Parlement du 11 Août 1762 —  II. Extraits des registres du Parlement du 3 Septembre 1762 —  III. Arrest du Parlement … du trois mars 1764 et Procès-verbal de vérification des textes des assertions cités dans l’instruction pastorale de M. l’archevêque de Paris du 28 octobre 1763.

Paris, P. G. Simon, imprimeur du Parlement, rue de la Harpe, à l’Hercule, 1762–1764.

3 Folios,Three parts preserved separately: Price $3,200

  • I. 4 pp., sign. A² (26 × 21 cm).
  • II. 4 pp., sign. A² (23 cm).
  • III. [108] pp., signs. A–N⁴ O² (25 cm).
    with black ink stamp “Gen. de Paris Extraordinaire.” Manuscript attestation and signature of Dufranc at end of PartIII; All disbound.
Three printed documents from the registers of the Parlement, featuring the title 'Extrait des registres du Parlement' on the cover pages. The documents date from 1762 and 1764, detailing the suppression of Jesuit colleges in France. The first two documents are quarto sized, while the third is a folio. They display signatures and black ink stamps stating 'Gen. de Paris Extraordinaire', indicating their official status. One document has a handwritten note.
Close-up of the black ink stamp featuring the text 'Gen. de Paris Extraordinaire' enclosed in an ornate design.

Imprint & Provenance. Official Parlementary issues from the press of Pierre-Guillaume Simon, “à l’Hercule,” the standard printer of state decrees in the 1760s. The ink stamp denotes exemplars transmitted to the Procureur général de Paris. Dufranc’s autograph endorsements confirm administrative authenticity.

References. De Backer–Sommervogel XI (1890), 636 nos. 921 & 921a (for the 1764 arrêt); Cioranescu XIX siècle no. 32109; BnF FRBNF33575222 (3 sept. 1762); VD18 12038240; Rochemonteix, Les Jésuites et le Parlement (Paris 1889) I, pp. 214–227.

Rarity & Copies. Copies of the August and September 1762 Extraits are scarce outside France; Yale (Law), Bibliothèque Mazarine, and BnF hold examples; the 1764 Arrêt survives chiefly in institutional sets of Recueil des arrêts du Parlement de Paris. Complete runs of all three in contemporary state issue are very uncommon in commerce.

Issued from the presses of the Imprimeur du Parlement de Paris, these three acts form the printed skeleton of the Suppression of the Society of Jesus in France — the bureaucratic record of an exorcism. Between 1762 and 1764, the Parlement transformed its role from court of law to instrument of doctrine, wielding print as a weapon of moral sovereignty. The decrees of 11 August and 3 September 1762, both signed by Louis Dufranc, Secretary of Parliament, close the Jesuit colleges, confiscate their revenues, and transfer their teaching to professors appointed by the secular universities. The Arrêt of 3 March 1764, reported by Omer-Louis-François Joly de Fleury, constitutes the definitive expulsion of the Society from France, accompanied by a procès-verbal verifying “heretical” propositions extracted from the Archbishop of Paris’s Instruction pastorale — a final, almost theatrical act of erasure.

These imprints, all from the shop of P.G. Simon, rue de la Harpe, à l’Hercule, bear the official “Gen. de Paris Extraordinaire” stamp, marking them as authentic Parlementary exemplars. The copies here retain manuscript endorsements by Dufranc himself — a rare survival of bureaucratic immediacy that bridges the printed decree and the hand that enacted it.

Within the Jesuit narrative, they stand as the reverse of missionary triumph: the administrative counter-miracle by which an order that had educated the kingdom’s elite for two centuries was dissolved in the name of the State. Seen through the lens of Enlightenment politics, they mark the moment when the Gallican mind replaced the Jesuit soul in the formation of youth. Their language — juridical, precise, and coldly impersonal — masks the violence of an intellectual coup. DUFRANC, Louis.

877J-i Extrait des registres du Parlement. Du 11 Aout 1762.
(A Paris, chez P.G. Simon, imprimeur du Parlement, rue de la Harpe, à l’Hercule. 1762).

Title page of the 1762 parliamentary extract document, featuring detailed text and decorative elements, illustrating the official decree regarding the Jesuits in France.

Quarto 26x21cm.,  Signatures: A2. Black ink stamp “Gen. de Paris Extraordinaire”. At the end, a handwritten note signed ‘Dufranc’. The famous arrêt ordering the closure of Jesuit colleges within the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris, the decisive first act in the suppression of the Society in France. This ruling followed a lengthy investigation of Jesuit constitutions and teaching practices, and it laid the foundation for the comprehensive expulsion decrees that followed.

Folio ; 26 x 21 cm. Pp. 3, (1). 

877J•ii DUFRANC, Louis.

Extrait des registres de Parlement, du 3 septembre 1762.  [relatif aux collèges jésuites].

Page of a historical document titled 'Extrait des registres du Parlement, Du 3 Septembre 1762', featuring an ornate header with decorative elements.

(A Paris, chez P.G. Simon, imprimeur du Parlement, rue de la Harpe, à l’Hercule. 1762)

Quarto 23cm Signatures: A2 Black ink stamp “Gen. de Paris Extraordinaire”. At the end, a handwritten note signed ‘Dufranc’

A follow-up decree, enforcing and clarifying the arrêt of 11 August 1762, specifically regarding the colleges and their property. These two “Extraits” together show the Parlement moving from judgment to execution of the suppression. Concerns education and teaching. Jesuits to be replaced by Professors appointed by French Universities. Signed at end by Dufranc, Secretary of Parliament.

Notice n° :  FRBNF33575222

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A close-up of a historical document featuring handwritten text from 1762 regarding the arrest of the Parlement of Paris and related legal matters.

877J•iii Omer-Louis-François, Joly de Fleury

Arrest du Parlement, la cour suffisamment garnie de pairs, du trois mars mil sept cent soixante-quatre, [rapporté par O. Joly de Fleury] et Procès-verbal de vérification des textes des assertions cités dans l’instruction pastorale de M. l’archevêque de Paris, du 28 octob. 1763, dressé en exécution de l’arrêt de la cour du 23 janv. 1764.

A document titled 'Arrest du Parlement' detailing legal proceedings related to the expulsion of Jesuits in France, printed in Paris by P.G. Simon in 1764, with an official ink stamp.

A Paris : Chez P.G. Simon … rue de la Harpe, à l’Hercule.1764 

Folio  25cm.  Signatures: A-N⁴ O²| 108 pages ;  Black ink stamp “Gen. de Paris Extraordinaire”. Disbound 

The culmination of the Parlementary campaign, recording the final legal expulsion of the Society from France and the verification of controversial passages in the Archbishop of Paris’s pastoral instruction (28 Oct. 1763). A key document of the suppression crisis, and the most detailed justification of the Parlement’s stance.   . This is a description of the  events that convinced the French Parliament to suppress the Society of Jesuits.  It contains  the “Verification process of the texts of the assertions cited in the Pastoral Instruction of M. the Archbishop of Paris, of October 28, 1763, drawn up in execution of the Arrêt de la court of January 23, 1764”. The “Instruction” was a protest against the condemnation of the Jesuits.

 De Backer–Sommervogel, vol. XI, col. 636, nos. 921 & 921a.

Document with handwritten notes and an official ink stamp, detailing the expulsion of the Jesuits from France by the Parlement.

JAMESGRAY2@ME.COM