History Of Napoleon From French of De L’Ardeche 1843. This is a two-volume set about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte titled “History of Napoleon; From The French Of M. Laurent De L’Ardeche, Member Of The Institute Of France, Etc. With Five Hundred Illustrations, After Designs By Horace Vernet; and Twenty Original Portraits. In Two Volumes.” Published in New York by D. Appleton, 200 Broadway and in Philadelphia by George Appleton, 148 Chestnut St. in MDCCCXLIII [1843]. The first edition was published in French in one volume in 1839 and the first English edition was published in two volumes in 1840 and 1841. Both volumes have gilt-lettered spines with the figure of a standing Napoleon and the imperial crown surrounded by sun rays inside a large wreath, with “Appleton & Co. Illustrated Edition” in gilt near the top of the spine and “500 Engravings” in gilt near the heel, an imperial eagle in gilt and embossed decorations on the covers, there are yellow endpapers followed by blank white endpapers, and a frontis portrait of Napoleon in Volume I and the title page and a frontis portrait of General Blucher on horseback in Volume II; General Blucher was a Prussian general who helped the Duke of Wellington defeat Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. The first volume has two pages of Contents (v - vi) after the title page, along with a list of portraits on the second Contents page, then 530 pages of text that have double borders in black all the way to the end. Volume II has 394 pages of text with the double black borders around each page, followed by an Appendix to the Life of Napoleon, including the Exhumation and Re-interment of Napoleon’s Remains - the Appendix is 48 pages long and does not have the double borders on each page - and M. Laurent De L’Ardeche (1793 - 1877) was a French lawyer, journalist, politician, librarian and historian who wrote this fascinating history of Napoleon. Napoleon needs no introduction, but if you need to know, he had aspirations to be Emperor and control all of Europe, and he was defeated by the Duke of Wellington and Blecher at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, which ended Napoleon’s dreams of being world conqueror, and Napoleon was sent into exile shortly after he was defeated at Waterloo. (Napoleon was actually sent into exile twice - once at Elba in 1814, and the second time at the island of St. Helena in late 1815, and he died on St. Helena six years later.) The books measure 9 1/2 x 6 1/8 in. wide and have wear at the crown and heel of the spines, wear at the tips, browning on some of the margins and text, and the spine on Volume I needs to be repaired. There are some loose pages in the Appendix too, but it is quite a topic in the Appendix - about the remains of Napoleon being exhumed - dug up - and buried somewhere else afterwards. The first edition in French goes for about $1500, and this is an early English edition and the spine needs to be repaired on the first volume, so we are selling the two books as is and have started the bidding low enough so it can be affordable. #175 #1626