THE FRENCH INQUISITION: OR, THE HISTORY OF THE BASTILLE IN PARIS, THE STATE-PRISON IN FRANCE: IN WHICH IS AN ACCOUNT OF THE MANNER OF THE APPREHENDING OF PERSONS SENT THITHER; AND OF THE BARBAROUS USAGE THEY MEET WITH THERE. AS ALSO AN ACCOUNT OF THE LEWD LIVES AND STRANGE ADVENTURES OF SEVERAL PRISONERS, BUT MORE PARTICULARLY OF SOME PRIESTS, WRITTEN BY CONSTANTIN DE RENNEVILLE, WHO WAS A PRISONER THERE ELEVEN YEARS

London, England: A. Bell in Cornhill; T. Varnham and J. Osborne in Lombard Street; W. Taylor and J. Baker in Pater-Noster Row, 1715. Leather-bound. Very Good. Octavo. Brown half-calf over marbled boards of red, black and grey. Later contrasting spine label of dark-red morocco, with gilt lettering. Original spine gilt-ruled into sections [iv], 322, [2] pp. 7 1/4 in. x 4 3/4 in. Rubbng to extremities, yet solidly bound. Some mild toning to first and last several pages, but the bulk of the text pages are supple and bright. Lacking final page of advertisements.

Translated from the original, printed at Amsterdam, at the time, the only English translation from the original work.

Worldcat shows only 2 copies of the book, one at the State Library of Australia, the other at the Edinburgh University Library. de Renneville (1650-1723) was a Protestant writer who, because of his religious principles, was imprisoned in the French Bastille from 1702 to 1713. Eventually freed by Queen Anne, and having traveled to England, wrote his signature five-volume work Histoire de la Bastille, publishing its first volume in 1715 and the remaining four, in 1719. This single-volume, abridged version of that larger work was published by Daniel Defoe's publisher William Taylor and both are said to have "shared aspects of realism and romanticization, an interest in the hardly credible 'romantic' story of a survivor" (Wikipedia)


"...I know you have the diamond; it you do not Voluntarily return it, there are six Soldiers, who will strip you Naked, and beat you with Bull's Pizzles till you produce it. He still swore abminably, that he had it not, but when the Governor had turned his Back upon him, full of Indignation, and the Soldiers went about to strip him, he caus'd Monsieur Bassemaux to be call'd back, drew the Diamond out of his Fundament, where he had hid it, wrapped up in a piece of Linen, and return'd it to him, saying, He had don it only for a Jest..." (p. 212).