Paris, Dufey, 1835.
4 parts in 4 volumes 8vo of: I/ (2) ll., 392 pp; II/ (2) ll., 432 pp., small hole in the bl. margin p. 9; III/ (2) ll., 406 pp, few browned ll.; IV/ (2) ll., 418 pp., some scattered foxing.
Red half-morocco, red paper covers, crowned monogram in the centre of the covers, flat spines decorated with gilt fillets. Contemporary binding.
210 x 130 mm.
First edition of this highly valued and uncommon work.
Tulard, 1464 ; Bertier, 980.
Frédéric Guillaume de Vaudoncourt (1772-1845) was a French general who served during the campaigns of the Revolution and the Empire in the army of the Kingdom of Italy; at the time of the Second Restoration, he fled abroad and was sentenced to death in absentia. He played an active role in the Revolution of 1830.
“Lieutenant General during the Hundred Days, Vaudoncourt was sentenced to death in absentia on the second return of the Bourbons. He took refuge in London, Belgium, Munich, with Prince Eugene, travelled to Italy and Spain and was present at the beginning of the French intervention in 1823. Amnestied in 1825 and immediately reformed, he fought in the ranks of the insurgents in July 1830” (Bertier and Fierro, 980).
“The first volume begins with the author’s arrival in Mons on 26 October 1815. But, from the second chapter, he gives a ‘glance at past events’ and takes up his memories at the beginning of the year 1812. The whole of the first volume is thus the object of the relation of the years 1812, 1813 and 1814. A remarkable testimony of a brigadier general of the army of Italy, smart and cultured. (Tulard, 1464).
“A cultured man and freedom fighter, general Frédéric Guillaume de Vaudoncourt left his Memoirs (Quinze années d’un proscrit), in which he skillfully retraces his atypical itinerary, that of a soldier of the republic who became a general of Napoleon, pursuing his liberal quest across the whole continent”.
A beautiful and precious copy with very wide margins, preserved in its contemporary bindings in red half-morocco with the crowned monogram of Marie-Louise de Habsbourg-Lorraine, empress of the French.
“Marie Louis Léopoldine Françoise Thérèse Louise, Archduchess of Austria, eldest daughter of François I, Emperor of Austria, was born in 1791 and was brought up to hate France and Napoleon I. She was asked to marry Napoleon I for reasons of state, married him by proxy in 1810 and gave birth to the King of Rome in 1811. Regent during the 1813 campaign, she returned to Austria on the Emperor’s abdication in 1814 and became Duchess of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla”.
Olivier Hermal, pl. 2654.
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