Armstrong, C. W. [editor]; Bourrienne; O'Meara; et al. Bourrienne's Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte: Amplified from the Works of Las Caes, Rovigo, Constant, Gourgaud, Rapp, and other celebrated French Writers; with An Appendix, embracing the Principle Events in the Emperor's Life, from 1815 until his Death at St. Helena; also, a Particular Account of the Exhumation of His Remains, and their Final Disposition, in accordance with his Last Wish, in the Hotel des Invalides. Condensed from the Works of O'Meara, Antommarchi, Napier, Scott, Horne, &c. Columbus: J. & H. Miller, 1858. [8234]
Black cloth decorated in blind & gilt, backstrip decorated with title, eagle, flag, Napoleon mounted on a horse, cannons and cannonballs. 6 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches, binding intact but with tatty spine ends, corner tips worn through, backstrip appears to have sometime been repasted to spine. Library bookplate at front, ink name stamp on tp, rear end papers with 2 labels. The spine does not have library matter. Fine steel-engraved portrait of Bonaparte as frontispiece, 560 generally clean pp., some foxing towards both ends of the book. Tightly bound. Good. Hardcover.
Illustrated with wood engravings.
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne (1769-1834), French diplomat, intimate friend of and private secretary to Napoleon Bonaparte.
"His book gives a vivid, intimate, detailed account of his interactions with Napoleon and his mother, brothers and sisters; with his first wife Joséphine de Beauharnais and her children; with notable French politicians; and with the marshals, he was especially friendly with Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, the future King of Sweden, when they both were in Northern Germany. His narrative is invigorated by many dialogues, not only of those in which he was a speaker but even of conversations that he only was told about by others. Their exactitude may be suspect but surely they give a memorable portrait of his times. Many judgments are supported by quotes from his stockpile of documents. Naturally his narration is colored by his complicated relationship with his subject: close friendship, working together intimately for years, followed by dismissal and humiliating rejection. He tries to be balanced and gives many examples of Napoleon's brilliance, his skill at governance, and his deft political maneuvers, while deploring his inexorable grabs for personal and familial power and wealth, his willingness to sacrifice French lives, and his abhorrence of a free press. Military campaigns are left for professional judges. One of his bombshells is the claim that the Grand Army based at Boulogne was never meant to invade England, too chancy an enterprise: it was a diversion to keep British forces at home." - wikipedia.