2 volumes, large 4tos. 123 original documents tipped in. (Marginal scorch marks with losses, some soiling). Early 20th century burgundy straight-grain Morocco gilt, covers with central Napoleonic Coat of Arms, spine decorated with Napoleonic honeybees and French Imperial eagles, stamp-signed by Charles Benoit (light rubbing, sunning to spines, long scratch to front cover of Vol. I, minor losses and rubbing to rear cover of Vol. II). Provenance: Maurice d'Hartoy (1892-1981), French military officer and author, founder of Croix-de Feu (ownership stamped in gilt on spines); Wm. H. Schab Galleries New York, ca 1992 (sales record).

123 ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS SALVAGED FROM THE BURNING OF THE TUILERIES PALACE IN 1871, MANY STILL BEARING VISIBLE TRACES OF THE FIRE. Preserved in two albums titled Autographes et Documents historiques sur Napoléon et son temps..., the collection comprises 123 documents relating to Napoleon and his era, many signed by leading figures of the First Empire, including Emperor Napoleon I, Joseph Bonaparte, André Masséna, Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Henri-Jacques-Guillaume Clarke, comte d’Hunebourg, Elisa Bonaparte, and others, including:

1) NAPOLEON. Autograph endorsement signed ("N"), on letter sent on behalf of Austrian General Count von Neipperg, Paris, April 1810, requesting release of all Austrian prisoners remaining in France. Von Neipperg was an Austrian general and statesman who following Napoleon's death in 1821 married his widow, Marie Louise of Austria. The two first met in 1814 when von Neipperg was tasked with escorting Marie to Aix-les-Bains as part of an elaborate ruse to prevent her from joining Napoleon in exile at Elba; the two quickly became lovers. The relationship was met with strong disapproval by Napoleon's friend, François-René de Chateaubriand, who called von Neipperg "the man who dared lay his eggs in the Eagle's nest."

2) NAPOLEON. Marginal autograph note signed twice ("N", "Np") with additional autograph note ("refusé") on letter signed by Henri-Jacques-Guillaume Clarke, 1st comte d'Hunebourg requesting United States passport for bookseller Cooper Swan, who wished to establish a business selling English books printed in Paris to then be sold in America, thus "[taking] away a considerable branch of English trade."

3) NAPOLEON. Marginal autograph notation signed ("Napol") on a letter from Jean-François Aimé, Count of Dejean, Paris, 15 June 1807, with additional autograph note ("granted") in which Napoleon is requested to release and return home eight sailors from Hamburg captured aboard the HMS Minerva who claimed to themselves be prisoners of the English.

4) NAPOLEON. Autograph notation signed ("Np") in margin of report submitted by Henri-Jacques-Guillaume Clarke, 1st comte d'Hunebourg, Paris, June 1808, with additional autograph notation ["Refused, need proof of wounds"], regarding exchange of General Charles, comte Lefebvre-Desnouettes, who had been taken prisoner by the English at the Battle of Benavente. Napoleon's refusal to aid Lefebvre-Desnouettes, who had married Napoleon's first cousin in 1806, resulted in a two-year imprisonment in England that ended only when he escaped in 1811. He immediately returned to France and rejoined the French Army, only to again be taken prisoner by the English during the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

5) NAPOLEON. Autograph notation signed ("N") in the margin of a report signed by Henri-Jacques-Guillaume Clarke, 1st comte d'Hunebourg, Paris, 20 May 1810, in which the Emperor grants freedom to English prisoners who distinguished themselves fighting a fire in the town of Auxonne.

6) NAPOLEON. Autograph notation signed ("N") in margin of report signed by Henri-Jacques-Guillaume Clarke, 1st comte d'Hunebourg, Château de Saint-Cloud, 30 November 1811, with additional autograph notation ("accorde"), requesting clemency for an English prisoner named Castiglioni, then held as a prisoner at Mont-Dauphin.

7) NAPOLEON. Autograph notation signed ("N") on a report signed by Henri-Jacques-Guillaume Clarke, 1st comte d'Hunebourg, Château de Saint-Cloud, 18 August 1808, regarding the status of captured Russian soldiers serving in France, whose repatriation Russia demanded.

On 19 February 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte moved into Tuileries Palace, the traditional home of French rulers dating back to Henri IV. Here resided the most important documents of the French rulers. Upon taking up residence in the palace Napoleon began to launch his imperial ambitions in earnest, redesigning the interior in the Neoclassical Empire Style and erecting a triumphal arch in the central courtyard as a gateway to the palace. Following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo and subsequent exile the House of Bourbon returned to the residence, their rule lasting until the July Revolution of 1830. Upon declaring himself emperor in 1852 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, now Napoleon III, moved into the palace and remained there until his defeat at the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War. Following Napoleon III's subsequent capture the French Second Empire collapsed and was replaced by a revolutionary government now known as the Paris Commune. On 12 May 1873, while the old order desperately fought to suppress the Paris Commune, twelve men under the commune's former military commander, Jules Bergeret, stormed the palace and set it ablaze, the resulting fire burning for two days and destroying everything except for the palace foundations and the Arc de Triomphe.

The documents retain the scorch marks from this fire, and are believed to have been recovered during clean-up efforts. They were collected and bound by Maurice d'Hartoy (1892-1981), a French military officer who served in World War I and in 1927 founded the Croix-de-Feu, a far right military organization which was dissolved by order of French President Albert Lebrun in 1936. It was later sold by Austrian bookseller William Henry Schaub (1887-1975), who in 1930 negotiated the sale of a Gutenberg Bible to the Library of Congress and eight years later was forced to flee following the Nazi annexation of Austria and the Aryanization of his bookshop. He arrived in the United States later that year and reopened his business in 1939, later expanding it into Lucerne, France, and remaining involved in its daily operations until shortly before his death in 1975.