[PONTÉCOULANT (Philippe-Gustave Le Doulcet de)] Napoleon at - Lot 278

Lot 278
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100 - 150 EUR
[PONTÉCOULANT (Philippe-Gustave Le Doulcet de)] Napoleon at - Lot 278
[PONTÉCOULANT (Philippe-Gustave Le Doulcet de)] Napoleon at Waterloo or Précis rectifié de la Campagne de 1815 with new documents and unpublished pieces. By a former officer of the Garde Impériale who remained close to Napoleon throughout the campaign. Paris, Dumaine, 1866. In-8 half-brown chagrin, spine ribbed, gilt title, gilt cipher and date on the tail, double gilt fillet on the plates, red head (rel. legt post. de Dupré). First edition. Small rubbed on the nerves, otherwise a fine copy with the chiffon of Chodron de Courcel. "In 1866, Philippe-Gustave Le Doulcet de Pontécoulant published anonymously an important work on the Waterloo campaign, signed simply "by a former officer of the Imperial Guard who remained close to Napoleon throughout the campaign". Indeed, Pontécoulant was very much present during the 1815 campaign: he was then a lieutenant in the mounted artillery of the Old Guard. After a pilgrimage to the Waterloo battlefield fifty years after the events, he decided to write a history of this memorable campaign, based on the original documents and his personal recollections. While rectifying many of the mistakes made by historians and novelists (Thiers, Charras, Victor Hugo), he retraces each episode with precision, without obscuring any detail, and this with this permanent search for the truth. After addressing the political situation in France during the Emperor's landing at Golfe-Juan, Pontécoulant analyses each operation from the passage of the Sambre River by the French army on 15 June 1815, to the often little-known aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, all of which is backed up by a great deal of documentary evidence. His account, accurate, teeming with details, never republished since its publication in 1866, is a masterful work that today's Napoleonian will be pleased to discover." Presentation of the reprint by The Bookshop of the Two Empires, 2004.
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