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First edition of an extremely rare and important work by Barthélemy de Laffemas (1545-1641), the Huguenot tailor who later became Contrôleur général du commerce under Henri IV. The work is bound up with approximately 40 other edicts, arrêts, lettres patentes, ordonnances, etc., ranging in date from 1551 to 1628. "Laffemas was born in Dauphiné of a family of impoverished Calvinist nobility. Having adopted the vocation of tailor he was engaged sometime around 1566 by Henry of Navarre, whose continued favor after his coronation as Henry IV of France gave Laffemas an opportunity to become a prosperous merchant. The commercial experience Laffemas thus gained inspired him to write a number of tracts, twenty-three in all, sketching a program for the economic and social reform of the nation. Although these reveal their author's lack of scientific training, their basis in direct observation gives them a decidedly practical quality and often results in striking ingenuity in matters of detail. In opposition to the agrarian doctrines of his friend Sully, Laffemas upheld an industrialist policy. He assumed that the quantity of gold and silver, provided it was in active circulation, was an infallible index of a nation's wealth. But the drain of money into other countries was to be prevented, according to his view, not by prohibiting its exportation but by stimulating the manufacture of more and better goods to the point where foreign nations would be forced to buy in France. In his program for the reorganization of national industry were included the development of the cultivation of the mulberry tree with a view to increasing silk production, the creation of new factories, bans upon the export of raw material and the extension of government protection to industry. On its social side Laffemas' plan envisaged the creation of an autonomous industrial class which should have high powers to control the laboring energy of the nation in the interests of industrial aggrandizement. He proposed toward this end the strict enforcement of the edict of 1581, which had expanded the system of jurandes; the establishment of bureaus of manufactures in each diocese endowed with police jurisdiction and the right to settle industrial conflicts; and the creation of workhouses for habitual idlers. Henry IV manifested respect for Laffemas' ideas by appointing him contrôleur general of commerce in 1602 and so far followed his advice as to reissue the edict of 1581 in 1597 and to found a council of commerce and manufactures in 1601. In spite of these measures Laffemas' social program was doomed to oblivion because it conflicted with the royal conception of centralization. The economic and mercantilistic aspects of his system also failed to produce a significant effect at the time. But in their essentials they were later revived by Montchretien and eventually translated into legal fact by Colbert." (Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences). "It is difficult to evaluate the success of Laffemas' efforts. But some facts are clear. He paved the way for the titanic efforts of Colbert. He disseminated his own ideas in a fairly large and important circle. He accomplished something at least toward the early industrialization of France. It is almost impossible to deny him the rank of the first great mercantilist minister of France, and not see in him the Colbert of the reign of Henry IV" (Cole). READ MORE Octavo (156 x 97, mm.), pp. 40, [14]. Bound with approximately 40 other works in contemporary limp vellum, ties missing, spine lettered in manuscript, preserved in a custom brown morocco box. Woodcut devices to title pages, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces to contents. Leaves numbered in an early hand, occasional marginalia, manuscript table of contents bound in at end. Some works folded to fit the volume. Light bumping and rubbing, minor browning and foxing, remnants of recent bookplate to front pastedown, closed tear to inner margin of one of the folded in pamphlets; an excellent copy in a splendid period binding. Brunet III, col. 744; INED 2480. Charles Cole, French Mercantilist Doctrines before Colbert, 1931; Paul Harsin, Les doctrines monétaires et financières en France du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, 1928.