Description

AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT SIGNED  of 125 leaves (4 leaves in the hand of a copyist) for Catherine de Médicis, her astrologers and magicians, unpublished documents on diplomacy and the occult sciences in the 16th century, by Eugène Defrance. Dated 30 August 1910 in Annoire (Jura). Tidied up for publication, with numerous autograph corrections and plates.

The book was published by Mercure de France in 1911, with 20 illustrations that are not mentioned in the manuscript. Arguing that Catherine de Médicis indulged in both esoteric practices and homicidal machinations, Defrance organises his argument as follows:

i. Sterility of Catherine, Dr. Jean Fernel magical beverages.
ii. The astrological oracles of Luc Gauri and Nostradamus, the death of Henry II and Montgomercy
iv. The Magic Mirror
iii. The death of Francis II, the coronation of Charles IX and the astrologer Simeonivii. The Oracle of the Bloody Head and the death of Charles IX
v. The bewitchment and assassination of Protestant leaders
vi. The bewitchment of Charles IX and Cosmo Ruggieni
vii. The oracle of the bloody head and the death of Charles IX
viii. other forms of katherine's supersition and the influence of occultism on the minds of her sons
ix. Astronomical omens for 1989 and the death of Catherine de Medici

Contrary to the claims of various historians who have set the record straight, it was indeed to a darker ideal that Catherine dedicated her soul, the whole of her haughty Florentine soul. It was only before the astrolabe, magic mirrors and goetic circles that she bowed her sovereign pride. Through the occult sciences, she became a wife, mother and dictator, by turns kind or cruel, deceitful or sincere, but always skilfully enigmatic and mysterious (p. 17).

The manuscript is dedicated to "to my friend Léon Malet, Librarian of the Senate". and accompanied by two remnants of envelopes from the Mercure de France addressed to the author.
Printer's marks and small engraving of a devil pasted to the first leaf.

Eugène Defrance (1874-19?) published 6 other works, including an essay on Charlotte Corday (1909) and a book on the French Revolution. History of street lighting in Paris (1904).