Lot n° 14
Estimation :
1000 - 1500
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 9 570EUR
NAPOLEON III (Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, future).... - Lot 14 - Osenat
NAPOLEON III (Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, future). 3 autograph notebooks, one bound, with 3 flying autograph sheets. 1837-1840.
ACTIONS AND REFLECTIONS BETWEEN HIS FIRST TWO COUP ATTEMPTS. Before the success of December 2, 1851, Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had tried unsuccessfully on two occasions to raise the country to seize the reins of power. The first attempt took place in Strasbourg on October 30, 1836 and, after an arrest, he was forced into exile in the United States - from where he quickly returned to visit his dying mother, Queen Hortense. He then moved to London, but ran his chance a second time, to Boulogne-sur-Mer on August 6, 1840, and was arrested again, this time imprisoned at the fort of Ham.
Crossing to New York via Rio de Janeiro
after his trip from Strasbourg
- Autograph manuscript written from about January to March 1837. 5 pp. 1/4 in-12 on wove paper gilt on edges, covered with a fine writing in ink; first page first written in pencil then entirely written again in ink.
Placed under the exergue "I hope in God, I believe in myself", it includes first a chronological memoir of the events that occurred from October 28, 1836, the date of his entry into France to perpetrate his attempted coup d'état in Strasbourg, his departure from France by order of Louis-Philippe I, aboard the L'Andromède (November 21, 1836), his crossing to Brazil (where he arrived on January 10, 1837), and then his disembarkation in the United States at Norfolk, Virginia, on March 30, 1837.
Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte carefully noted the names of the people who assisted him in his adventure and who were then prosecuted, but also the names of those who had to take care of him until he reached the port of Lorient, those who made the crossing with him, including the students of the frigate L'Andromède, and contacts in America such as the French consul in the port city of Norfolk, Virginia.
He also noted various bibliographical references, concerning works to be read or perhaps read (Greco-Latin classics, authors of books on Brazil, etc.), and even a recipe for preserving the skins. With mentions of other hands, including a poem in English in his honor that was given to him on New Year's Day 1837.
Stay in the United States
- Autograph manuscript written from about March to June 1837 and then towards the end of October 1838. 20 pp. in-16 on gilt laid paper with fine pencil writing.
It includes notes on the guns of the foundry founded at West Point by William Kemble (Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had a military background as an artilleryman), notes on the cost of running the West Point officers' school and notes on English vocabulary.
This notebook also contains political and economic reflections: "It is senseless to try to formulate the social problem than to want to find a universal panacea which cures all the evils whatever their origins and whatever the temperament of the patients...", but also observations on the Americans, on Napoleon I. With some mentions about his personal accounting.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte then recorded the itinerary of his return from the United States to Europe, from New York on June 12, 1837 to Arenenberg on August 4, 1837, passing through Ireland and the Netherlands, then his passage from Arenenberg on October 14, 1838 to London on October 24.
THIS NOTEBOOK IS ILLUSTRATED WITH 9 ORIGINAL DRAWINGS INCLUDING 2 VIEWS OF THE HUDSON RIVER, the first taken from PEEKSKILL on June 1, 1837, between New York and West Point, the second taken from WESTPOINT on June 2, 1837. The other drawings are simple sketches (including a building facade) sometimes covered with writing.
In exile in London
preparing his adventure in Boulogne
- Autograph manuscript written from December 1838 to August 1840. Approximately 50 pp. in an English notebook in-12 of laid paper with watermark dated 1836, ruled, and bound in semi-rigid blond calf with flap, smooth mute spine, cold-stamped trellis decoration covering boards and spine, "His Highness the prince Napoleon Louis Bounaparte [sic]" pushed in cold on the second board, passing from the flap to the first board, lining of dark green long-grained morocco, inner gusset, marbled edges (period binding).
INSTRUCTIVE SOURCE ON FINANCIAL CIRCUITS AND BONAPARTIST CIRCLES, this account book was kept by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte from the time of his installation in London in October 1838 until the day before his departure for Boulogne in August 1840. He recorded his receipts from the Baring bank, from a bank in Vienna, and mentions the shares and annuities that he held (notably the Ohio annuity). He marked his expenses, for horses, carriage, lodging, a payment to the London bookseller-publisher William Sams, the gag
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue