[BEYERLÉ (Jean-Pierre-Louis)]. Essai sur la Franc-Maçonnerie - Lot 48

[BEYERLÉ (Jean-Pierre-Louis)]. Essai sur la Franc-Maçonnerie, ou Du But essentiel & fondamental de la F∴ M∴ ; de la possibilité & de la nécessité de la réunion des différens systèmes ou branches de la M∴ ; du Régime convenable à ces systèmes réunis, & des Loix Maç∴ À Latomopolis, chez Xiste Andron, rue du Temple de la Vérité, à l'enseigne du Soleil. L'an de la V[raie] L[umière] 5784 [1784]. 2 volumes in-8, marbled brown calf, ribbed spines with partitions and fleurons, filleted spines, red edges (period binding). lx-260 + 416 pp. 2 printed folding tables out of text; upper headpieces and one corner rebound, edges re-stained, some marginal wetness. FIRST EDITION. 3 separate woodcuts, the first repeated on the 2 titles, the second repeated as a headband at the beginning of each of the 3 books in the text, and the third, with the phoenix symbol, stamped alone on the last page. JEAN-PIERRE LOUIS BEYERLE (1738-1805) was a lawyer at the Parliament of Metz, then a councillor at the Court of Nancy. After 1788, he moved to Paris, where, as a skilled economist, he held the positions of commissaire général des Monnaies (1792) and finally chef de bureau at the Ministry of Finance, in charge of the administration of the mint (1800). A member of the Strict Observance chivalric Masonic order, under the title of Eques a fascia, in Nancy in 1777, he was President of the Grande Écossaise de Lorraine and Masonic Prefect of this province. Critical of the decisions taken at the Wilhelmsbad Convent (1782), he published his own theories in the present Essay on Freemasonry. RARE.