Being the Diary written at St Helena during a part of Napoleon's captivity now translated into English for the first time with a preface by Hillaire Belloc. Very good first hand account of events on St Helena.
The St. Helena Journal of Baron Gourgaud
1932 John Lane the Bodley Head Ltd. London
First English edition
Baron Gaspard Gourgaud - Served with credit in the campaigns of 1803-1805, being wounded at the Battle of Austerlitz. He was present at the siege of Saragossa in 1808, returned to service in Central Europe and took part in nearly all the battles of the Danubian campaign of 1809.In 1811 he was chosen to inspect and report on the fortifications of Gdańsk. Thereafter he became one of the ordnance officers attached to the emperor, whom he followed closely through the Russian campaign of 1812; he was one of the first to enter the Kremlin and discovered there a quantity of gunpowder which might have been used for the destruction of Napoleon. For his services in this campaign he received the title of baron, and became first ordnance officer. In the campaign of 1813 in Saxony he again showed courage and prowess, especially at Leipzig and Hanau; but it was in the first battle of 1814, near to Brienne, that he rendered the most signal service by killing the leader of a small band of Cossacks who were riding furiously towards Napoleon's tent. Wounded at the Battle of Montmirail, he recovered in time to be involved in several of the conflicts which followed, distinguishing himself especially at Laon and Reims. Though enrolled among the royal guards of King Louis XVIII of France in the summer of 1814, he embraced the cause of Napoleon during the Hundred Days (1815), was named general and aide-de-camp by the emperor, and fought at Waterloo. Gourgaud saving Napoleon's life at the Battle of Brienne (1814). After the second abdication of the emperor (June 22, 1815), Gourgaud retired with him to Rochefort. It was to Gourgaud that Napoleon entrusted the letter of appeal to the prince regent for asylum in England. Gourgaud set off in HMS Slaney, but was not allowed to land in England. Determined to share Napoleon's exile, he sailed with him on HMS Northumberland to Saint Helena. Tiring of the life at Longwood, he decided to leave the island. In 1840, he joined other survivors of the captivity who returned to St. Helena to bring back Napoleon's remains for burial in Paris. He soon published his Campagne de 1815, in the preparation of which he had had some help from Napoleon. However, Gourgaud's Journal de Ste-Hélène was not published till the year 1899.
Used. Good. No DJ. Strength Very Good, Coverd Fair due to chipped spine, contents clean with a little foxing.