DEMERSAY, Alfred Histoire physique, économique et politique du Paraguay et des établissements des Jésuites […] Ouvrage accompagné d’un atlas, de pièces justificatives et d’une bibliographie.

Édition originale de la plus grande rareté de cet ouvrage estimé consacré au Paraguay. Sabin 19473 ; Palau 70299 ; manque à Leclerc.

« L’atlas comporte 1 carte et 14 belles planches lithographiées à deux teintes, portraits de Bonpland, Francia, Lopez, Rosas, Artigas, types d’Indiens, vues, etc. Ouvrage très estimé et que l’on rencontre rarement avec l’atlas » (Chadenat 289).

« Contient de nombreux renseignements sur le Brésil, les anciennes contestations territoriales, le Parana et ses affluents, la race guaranie, la politique extérieure du président Lopez et ses conflits avec le Brésil, etc. » (Garraux, Bibliographie brésilienne, p. 83).

« A few years after Lopez took power, foreigners began to venture into Paraguay. One was Dr. Alfred Demersay, a French physician. In 1845, he moved from the Mato Grosso province of Brazil to adjacent northern Paraguay. The president denied him permission to visit Asuncion. Then the recently arrived Brazilian minister José Antonio Pimenta Bueno, whom the elder Lopez trusted, convinced him to reconsider. Lopez allowed Demersay to visit and when his favored daughter Rafaela fell ill, Demersay treated her. Upon her recovery, the grateful Lopez asked the doctor to conduct a study of the nation. His investigation resulted in the publication of ‘Histoire physique, économique et politique du Paraguay’.” (J. Schofield Saeger, Francisco Solano Lopez and the Ruination of Paraguay, p. 42)

“A far more important French visitor was Alfred Demersay, later a key figure in the Société de Géographie at Paris, who gained a French government mission to visit South America in 1844. Demersay had a number of points in common with Bonpland. First, he was a medical doctor, trained at Paris. He traveled to South America with the specific aim of reporting on Paraguay, part of the international interest in gathering intelligence on that country that followed Francia’s demise. In the 1860s Demersay published a major work on the historical geography of Paraguay, the major foci of which were physical description and accounting for the country’s current resources; he never finished a planned volume dealing with the history and archaeology of the Jesuit missions. Demersay approached Paraguay through Brazil. He traveled south from Rio de Janeiro accompanying the royal party that visited Rio Grande do Sul as part of a celebration of the end of the Farroupilha Revolt. In fact, it was Brazil’s emperor Dom Pedro II who guided Demersay toward Bonpland at Sao Borja. Bonpland et Demersay spent considerable time together. The former guided the latter’s research, something Demersay readily acknowledged and that is also apparent in his publications. The important illustrations from the atlas that accompanies Demersay’s study of the historical geography of Paraguay had their origins in encouragement from Bonpland. Demersay, in turn, played an important role in carrying news from Bonpland to various places, both when arriving and departing from South America”.(S. Bell, A life in shadow: Aimé Bonpland in South America, p. 159).

Le présent exemplaire est bien complet de l’atlas du plus haut intérêt qui manqué le plus souvent et qui comporte 15 belles planches et une carte. L’ensemble des lithographies, représentant des Indiens et des vues du Paraguay, a été finement colorié à la main à l’époque.

Précieux exemplaire complet, conservé dans ses reliures uniformes de l’époque en demi-chagrin vert.

Le dernier exemplaire complet des 2 volumes de texte et de l’atlas à être passé sur le marché public est l’exemplaire du Dr. Enrique Garcia Merou en mars 1968.