[LE LABOUREUR (Claude)]. Discours de l'origine des armes, et des termes receus & usités pour l'explication de la Science Heraldique. [Followed by]: Epistre apologétique pour le Discours de l'origine des armoiries contre quelques lettres de M. C.-F. Ménestrier. Lyon, Guillaume Barbier, 1658. In-4, contemporary softbound, 24-256 pp. (miscalculated 236), large engraved title vignette and 163 burin-engraved coats of arms in the text. [Bound at the end]: Epistre apologétique pour le Discours de l'origine des armoiries contre quelques lettres de M. C.-F. Ménestrier, s.d. (1660), 119 pp. (without title page). Faded boards, upper hinge loose, marginal and angular wetness on first pages, more pronounced on last pages, small hole on pp. 33-34 of 2nd text, with small loss of text. Fair copy. First edition, without the leaf listing the families mentioned (often missing). This work by historian and heraldist Claude Le Laboureur (1601-1682) was the starting point of a quarrel between the author and Father Ménestrier. The latter criticized the Discourse in his "Véritable art du blason", published in 1659, and Le Laboureur countered with his "Épître apologétique pour le discours de l'origine des armes, contre quelques lettres de M. C. F. Menestrier".