Description:

A FRENCH GENERAL ANNOUNCES NAPOLEON'S VICTORIOUS ENTRANCE INTO MOSCOW, SEPTEMBER 14, 1812
A superb manuscript D.S. signed by one of Napoleon's generals in the Russian campaign, LOUIS-FRANCOIS-BERTRAND, COMTE DE LAUBERDIÈRE (1759-1837), 1p. legal folio, Moscow, Sept. 14, 1812. In full: "[Regarding] The great Battle of [September] 7 undertaken by the Russians to defend Moscow, they have abandoned their capital, three and a half hours ago the victorious army has entered Moscow. Emperor Napoleon will arrive immediately with his district general. To copy, the Gen. Baron Lauberdière". Napoleon's Russian campaign commenced in August 1812 with the unofficial aim to force Alexander I to remain in the trade embargo with Great Britain. The Grande Armée was led by Napoleon himself and forced the Russians to retreat for nearly three months. On September 7, the two forces would meet at Borodino - the bloodiest single-day battle of any of the Napoleonic campaigns - with the French emerging victorious. A week later the French army triumphantly entered the now-deserted Moscow. Exaltation soon turned to despair, however, as Russian loyalists ordered the city burnt. The fire leveled nearly two thirds of the city, and Napoleon and his entourage were forced to flee. From the outskirts of the city, Napoleon patiently waited for a month for a peace treaty. When none came, and with winter fast approaching and no hope for means to sustain an army during the brutal cold, the French army began its calamitous retreat in October. The disastrous campaign ultimately cost the lives of hundreds of thousands and spelled the downfall of Napoleonic Empire. The signatory of this announcement, Louis Francois Bertrand du Pont d'Aubevoye, Comte de Lauberdière was the nephew of Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau. As a 21-year-old captain he came to America to serve as an aide-de-camp to his uncle. His subsequent journal, Journal de l'armée aux ordres de monsieur le comte de Rochambeau pendant les campagnes de 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783, dans l'Amerique septentrionale (The American Campaigns of Rochambeau's Army 1780,1781,1782, 1783) was discovered in 1978. It immediately became controversial for its scathing description of American and her population. Lauberdière bewailed the anti-French sentiment in the country which he blamed on the British for foisting upon the ignorant American populace. Despite his apparent dislike of his adoptive home, Lauberdière remained in the States until the summer of 1800, when he was sent to London as a spy. Arrested there, he survived the French Terror in a prison camp, then joined the Grande Armée in 1802 and served in several important campaigns. For this he was made a Baron of the Empire in 1808. Light wrinkling to upper right corner, otherwise very good condition.

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May 8, 2012 11:00 AM EDT
Stamford, CT, US

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