BERRUYER (Rosalie). Signed autograph manuscript titled “Memo - Lot 169

Lot n° 169
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BERRUYER (Rosalie). Signed autograph manuscript titled “Memo - Lot 169
BERRUYER (Rosalie). Signed autograph manuscript titled “Memoirs of a Bonapartist, or Recollections of My Travels in England.” Approximately 200 folio leaves in violet and red ink, most written on both sides, bound in a single volume in black half-shagreen, with a ribbed spine; binding slightly rubbed (contemporary binding). MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF THE PEOPLE, A BONAPARTIST AT HEART. A domestic servant originally from Saint-Pierre-de-Bressieux, in the Bas-Dauphiné region, she undertook, after the fall of the Empire, made the pilgrimage to Camden Place (1872–1873) on several occasions despite her limited financial means, where she saw Napoleon III and was introduced to the Empress and the Imperial Prince. This voluminous memoir was written in several stages. It comprises a first section, divided into four parts, which blends recollections of her actions with accounts of the strength of her Bonapartist convictions, and which provides the manuscript’s overall title. Next, in a fifth section added in 1879–1880, Rosalie Berruyer takes a step back and reflects on her youth in the Dauphiné region, followed by her time as a domestic servant in Lyon and at Île-Barbe. Finally, she returns to the question of her Bonapartist loyalty and devotes a sixth part specifically to the Imperial Prince: she paints a physical portrait of him and recounts her attempt to meet him and the Empress during a trip she undertook to Italy. There is at least one other known autograph copy of these memoirs, which Rosalie Berruyer addressed to the Imperial Prince (she mentions this in the present copy). The text was printed in a small, non-commercial run by the Imprimerie centrale de Grenoble in 1894—this edition includes a brief addition that is absent here. One known copy of the printed edition bears a handwritten note dated in Grenoble on August 10, 1894, indicating a print run on Holland paper of only 10 copies—likely the only paper used, given the work’s rarity today: only two copies are listed in the CCFr, both in the Dauphiné Collection of the Grenoble Municipal Library. Provenance: Pierre Bauron, parish priest of Saint-Eucher in Lyon (signed autograph donation inscription: “This manuscript was given to me by the author, Mlle. Rosalie Berruyer, on January 27, 1896...” Jean-Denis Serena Collection
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