Traité apologétique défendant l’intégrité de la Société de la Rose-Croix

Published in 1617, a few years after the Rosicrucian Manifestos, this treatise concerns a defence of the Fraternity of the Rose Cross against its detractors. Its author, Robert Fludd, is one of the great humanists of the Renaissance. In this work he demonstrates that members of the Rose-Cross are neither agitators nor heretics. Their philosophy concerns divine mysteries and the secrets of light hidden within the great book of nature, and their ethics contribute to an evaluation of morality, a refining of the arts and the advance of science. Doctor, alchemist and distinguished astrologist, Robert Fludd also describes the planetary conjunction which brought about the resurgence of the Rose-Cross and the dissemination of its ideas. The work draws to a close with a particularly touching epilogue, in which the author requests admission into the Rose-Cross. This fundamental text, which is essential for anyone interested in the origins of the Rose-Cross and its ethical foundations, has for the first time been translated into French from the original 1617 version.