[DANGEAIS CHARLES] Mémoires historiques et inédits sur la vie politique et privée de l’Empereur Napoléon, depuis son entrée à l’école de Brienne jusqu’à son départ pour l’Égypte. Paris: Corréard, 1822.

Lot 69

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In-8°, 1 frontispiece, 266 pp. (misnumbered as 268), (2) ff. publisher’s catalogue. With a hand-coloured lithographed frontispiece (full-length portrait of Napoleon). Porphyry sheepskin, gilt roulette frame, smooth decorated spine, green headband, marbled edges (period binding). Foxing. Ex-libris of Dominique de Villepin (designed by the painter Zao Wou-Ki). First edition. A rare and curious early biography of Napoleon, attributed to Charles Dangeais, Comte d’Oguerreau, former pupil of the Brienne school, an officer on the staff of the Army of Italy, and close friend of Napoleon. According to the publisher, this book is one of the strangest ever written about Napoleon. In Napoléon dans sa jeunesse [ Napoleon in his youth], 1769-1793, Frédéric Masson points out that this work seems to have been the source suggests that this work appears to have served as a source for most of the apocryphal works circulated under Bonaparte’s name.

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