BOSSUET (Jacques-Bénigne). Autograph manuscript. [December 1 - Lot 165

BOSSUET (Jacques-Bénigne). Autograph manuscript. [December 1669]. 2pp. in-4, erasures and corrections; traces of glue and paper missing from lower corners. Passage from a sermon on the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. "Divine wisdom prepares [variant raised, "conducts"] from afar its works [variant raised, "designs"] and a mother of God is not formed all at once or by a single stroke.... If God did such great things to raise the Blessed Virgin to such a high dignity, we must also believe, Christians, that He did great things to prepare her for this honor. It seems that such a great work could not have been carried too far, nor begun too soon, and if we know how august is the quality to which Mary must be elevated, we will easily understand that it is not too much to prepare her for it from the first moment of her life [variant, "her being"], that is, from the moment she is conceived. This powerful consideration easily persuades the faithful that her conception was without blemish..." Provenance: the Lille collector and historian Charles-Louis Ducas (bookplate stamp from the first half of the 19th century). -Then François LeBlastier, apostolic missionary and one-time priest in the diocese of Meaux, who was Anatole France's model for Abbé Lantaigne in L'Orme du mail (handwritten bookplate from the second half of the 19th century). Abbé LeBlastier first published this manuscript in his Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, conférences sur la Mère admirable (Paris, Lecoffre, 1855).