Martial-Lapeyre Library

Almost immediately on the return in 1821 of those exiled to St Helena, many documents (texts, letters, declarations) related to Napoleon I’s final years were published.

Two series of memoirs and texts played an important part amongst these different publications.

The best known of the two series, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France, sous Napoléon, écrits à Sainte-Hélène par les généraux qui ont partagé sa captivité, et publiés sur les manuscrits entièrement corrigés de la main de Napoléon, comprises (in addition to certain ‘notes’) the works that Napoleon dictated to general Montholon on the Italian War, the Egyptian and Syrian Expedition, the siege of Toulon, and his annotations on the work Les Précis des guerres du maréchal Turenne which he dictated to Gourgaud. Montholon, with Gourgaud as his partner, signed a contract with the bookseller and printer Bossange almost as soon as he got off the boat in 1821 for the tidy sum of 30,000 francs. The eight volumes came out between 1823 and 1825.

As for the less-studied series, Recueil  des pièces authentiques sur le captif de Sainte-Hélène, de mémoires et documents écrits ou dictés par l'Empereur Napoléon, it is, however, no less interesting though the layout of the printed texts makes for difficult reading: there is no sort of presentation or any sort of introduction that would allow the reader to place the writings in a historical context.

The first volume of this twelve-volume series was printed in 1821. The following eleven volumes came out piecemeal starting in 1822, with the last volume coming out in 1825.

The three editors of the second series were Alexandre Corréard, Antoine Jay and Joseph Renault-Warrin, all “Bonapartists” and politically opposed to the Restoration.

Alexandre Corréard (1788-1857) was one of the ten survivors (out of the 152-man crew) of the shipwreck of La Méduse in 1816 off the African coast. Deeply scarred by this terrible near-death experience marooned on a segment of shattered decking, he set up as a publisher with premises at the Palais-Royal in the Galeries de Bois, a hot spot for the Parisian book trade, under the name “Au naufragé de La Méduse” (1). He published large numbers of political tracts that fuelled political controversies of the time and also works of fiction, making a name for himself because of his taste for English Gothic novels. He printed the first French edition of Frankenstein in 1821.

Antoine Jay (1770-1854) and Joseph Renault-Warrin (1775-1844) were the ‘brains’ behind the enterprise. Both editors for newspapers in open opposition to Louis XVIII’s regime, they were very close to the imperial elite. Antoine Jay was the private tutor for Fouché’s children for six years.

The first volume was first and foremost an accusation against Great Britain, the Emperor’s jailer and in the editors’ eyes responsible for his death. The title on the cover page sets the tone: “I bequeath the opprobrium of my death to the reigning house of England. Napoleon.”

The subsequent volumes comprised texts related to the exile of St Helena which had already been published, but they had often been badly printed and poorly circulated. A few engravings were added to the publication.

(1) “Premises of the survivor of the wreck of La Méduse” – This name refers to Corréard’s survival of La Méduse and also demonstrates how he wanted to use the fame attached to his survival in order to further the success of his bookshop.