PREMIER EMPIRE - MANUSCRIT - IMPERATRICE JOSEPHINE - Histori - Lot 82

PREMIER EMPIRE - MANUSCRIT - IMPERATRICE JOSEPHINE - Historical memories of Madame RIBLE, Madame Bonaparte's first chambermaid. 1793-1804. Contemporary soft leather notebook in-8. 132 pages. Souvenirs collected by her grandson Commandant E. Belleville and arranged by D. Sutter. This manuscript, which has remained completely unpublished, contains intimate details of the life of José^phine de Beauharanis, wife of Emperor Napoleon I, of the utmost interest in this "truly extraordinary" existence. Madame Rible's notes, preserved in the family, shed new light on the life of "the famous woman who saw her first husband, Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais, die on the scaffold, and who learned at Malmaison of the fall of her second husband, the great Emperor Napoleon".It includes previously unknown circumstances surrounding the arrest of the Viscountess de Beauharnais, as well as an account of intimate events that took place at Fontainebleau when Madame Rible and her husband were appointed to oversee the imperial residence. Madame Rible's recollections also provide information that corrects or contradicts many of the assertions made in various memoirs on the imperial family, such as those by Mlle Avrillon. At the end of the volume we find the inventory of objects belonging to Empress Josephine at the time of her divorce, a "rare and precious document which has never been published and which offers a most curious retrospective interest"... This precious manuscript was intended for publication, but we have found no trace of an edition. It is therefore completely unpublished and of the greatest historical interest.