Lot 1291 , Post-revolutionary France, 1827-1854, i. Jean Leopold Nicolas Frederic Cuvier (1769-1832), French naturalist and zoologist; letter to [René-Nicolas Dufriche], Baron Desgenettes; Paris, 26 July 1827

Post-revolutionary France, 1827-1854
i. Jean Leopold Nicolas Frederic Cuvier (1769-1832), French naturalist and zoologist; letter to [René-Nicolas Dufriche], Baron Desgenettes; Paris, 26 July 1827 Seeks his help for M Rivière, a doctor, who wishes to exercise his art among the Egyptians; he has good certificates from many of his teachers, but believes that the name of Desgenettes would be worth more than those of the whole faculty; it would be an act of charity towards a family which singular events have made most unhappy; annotated with a prescription

With a lithograph of a portrait of Cuvier by François Séraphin Delpech (1778-1825); [Paris, c1830]

The Baron Desgenettes (1762-1837), a military physician who had trained partly in London, became Chief Doctor to the French Army in Egypt. during the Hundred Days he re-assumed his role as Chief Doctor of the Imperial Guard, and assisted at the battle of Waterloo. In 1820, he was received as a member of the Académie Royale de Médecine, though he was expelled in 1822 following student demonstrations, only to be re-admitted in 1830 and elected a member of the Académie des sciences.

ii. Lucien Bonaparte (1775-1840), French politician and diplomat, younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte; letter to [Colin A] Mackenzie, esquire, 5 Hyde Park Place West, London; signs L P de Canino; Winchester, 31 March 1837

Is travelling for several weeks and unable to accept his invitation

Lucien Bonaparte was taken prisoner in 1809 when attempting to leave Italy for the United States. The government permitted Lucien to settle comfortably with his family at Ludlow and later at Thorngrove House in Grimley, Worcestershire, where he worked on a heroic poem on Charlemagne. In 1815 he rallied to his brother’s cause but was proscribed at the Restoration.

Colin A Mackenzie, esquire, was listed in the Royal Court Guide of 1842 at 5 Hyde Park Place West. In 1814 he had served in France as Commissary for British prisoners of war.

iii. Philippe de St Albin, librarian of the Empress Eugénie; letter to H[enry] W[illiam] Johnston, 9 Avenue de St Cloud, Paris; Sécretariat des Commandements de Sa Majesté l’Impératrice, Palais-Royale, 30 June 1854

Conveys the thanks of the empress for his book Legends of Normandy; cover stamped Service de l’Empereur (Maison de l’Impératrice)

Legends of Normandy, comprising two verse romances with a dedication in verse to the Empress and running to 108 pages, was printed by E Brière, 55 Rue St Anne, Paris in 1854.

According to the pseudonymous recollections of a member of the household, St Albin ‘delighted in very ancient hats and well-worn clothes, so creased and untidy that it seemed as if he slept in them’. (Le Petit Homme Rouge, Court life of the second French empire, 1852-1876, London, Chatto and Windus, 1908, p76).

For another letter to HW Johnston from Sir Robert Peel, see Lot 1286
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