NAPOLEON I. Autograph manuscript, entitled... - Lot 193 - Osenat

Lot 193
Go to lot
Estimation :
3000 - 4000 EUR
NAPOLEON I. Autograph manuscript, entitled... - Lot 193 - Osenat
NAPOLEON I. Autograph manuscript, entitled "Emprunt forcé progressive". St. Helena. 1 p. Precious autograph manuscript of Napoleon I on St. Helena concerning mainly the tax system PREPARATORY NOTES TO HIS "MEMOIRES", to be compared with several passages published as early as 1823 by Gaspard Gourgaud in the Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France sous Napoléon (Bossange frères, Firmin-Didot, t. I, 1823), in chap. III of the section entitled "Consuls provisoires", which is reproduced in the Œuvres de Napoléon Ier à Sainte-Hélène (Paris, Imprimerie impériale, t. XXXI, 1869). The pages indicated below refer to the latter work. ABOLITION OF THE PROGRESSIVE FORCE TAX (p. 390). The emperor takes up in detail the device of the law of 19 thermidor year VII [6 August 1799], which had been one of the most unpopular measures of the Directory, and criticizes it: "1° by this law the rich become poor. 2° Profits are reduced by the loss in the acquisition and sale of estates. 3° All and arbitrary. A[p]paremment progressive, this law... makes lose much more to the treasury... "REORGANIZATION OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF DIRECT TAXATION (pp. 390-391). Napoleon I then succinctly presents the functioning of the tax administration under the Revolution, in particular that set up by the law of 22 Brumaire, Year VI (12 November 1797), underlines its shortcomings, and indicates the principles that guided him in his tax reform at the beginning of the Consulate: "The Constituent Assembly charged the municipalities with the formation of the matrices of the roles of direct taxation. By the Constitution of the year 3 one created agents to form the matrices of the roles... Under the Directory, a bad organization was adopted which cost 4,367,000 and produced no good results... An organization is needed that is made within the Ministry of Finance, that has no necessary connection with local authorities. 99 directors, 99 inspectors, 840 controllers... who cost 2,473,000, thus a saving of 1,500,000... "Finally, Napoleon I mentions the ORGANISATION OF THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL: "The law on the Polytechnic School has 52 articles... "(pp. 393-394), and criticizes the BUDGET OF THE DIRECTOIRE in year VIII. The Memoirs of Napoleon THE PROMISE KEEPED FROM THE FAREWELL OF FONTAINEBLEAU. Napoleon I had said in 1814 to his last followers: "I will write the great things we have done together", and would say again to Las Cases at the beginning of August 1815: "We will write our Memoirs. Yes, it is necessary to work, work is also the scythe of time. After all, one must fulfill one's destiny, that is also my great doctrine. Well then! Let mine be fulfilled. Aware of the major place he had occupied in the history of his time, he spent long hours on St. Helena dictating - more rarely writing - the account of his campaigns, and military and political analyses of his time. These autobiographical and historiographical texts, written in the third person, thus form a veritable sum of major interest for understanding his thought. A GREAT HISTORICAL WORK AND A MONUMENT TO HIS LEGEND. Away from power, the deposed monarch set about shaping his image for posterity, he who had been able to play masterfully with all the means of communication to impose his public persona as a victorious revolutionary general, as a peacemaking and lawmaking first consul, and then as an omnipotent and beneficent emperor... A REAL EDITORIAL ADVENTURE: the publication of these "memoirs" took place in several stages, from 1818 to 1869. They were first published in partial editions by Gourgaud in 1818, O'Meara in 1820 and Las Cases in 1823. In a way that was not yet exhaustive, and in a disturbed chronological order, a very large edition was given by Gourgaud and Montholon in 1823-1825 under the title Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France sous Napoléon Ier, republished in 1830 in a re-established chronology, while the part devoted to Egypt, which had remained unpublished, was published separately in 1847. The whole was republished by Petetin in 1867, but it is the edition given following the great Correspondance in 1869 that remains the most complete, although the editors excluded some dictations previously published by Las Cases and Montholon (cf. Thierry Lentz, "Présentation des mémoires de Napoléon", in Mémoires de Napoléon. La campagne d'Italie, Tallandier, 2010, pp. 11-31). Provenance: collection of the Earls of Crawford and Balcarres, Alexander William and James Ludovic Lindsay (armorial bookplate stamp Bibliotheca Lindesiana).
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue