Our Notes & References

Fine political document, illustrated with a portrait of the tsar and attractively bound in lovely wrappers. Scarce on the market, as we couldn’t trace any other copy passing through auctions or the trade in recent decades.

In post-napoleonic turmoil, political strategies and projects for the future were of greatest importance. In this ‘grand manifeste’, given by the tsar for 1816 New Year’s day, Alexander I summaries the Napoleonic Wars – “les fruits du crime et de l’incrédulité!” – and his people’s victory, before celebrating the new and peaceful period of restauration. As stated on the title: “donné à Saint-Pétersbourg, le 1er janvier de l’an grâce 1816, et publié à Paris, le 5 mars, même année”. And the next leaf to clarify that Alexander is making in the text a “portrait […] de l’usurpateur Buonaparte”.

It is printed on just one broadsheet, then folded in the duodecimo format.