Général Custine - Mémoires du général Custine rédigés par l'un de ses aides de camp - 1794

Adam Philippe de Custine (1742-1793). Memoirs of General Custine written by one of his aides-de-camp. Hamburg, Frankfurt, 1794, 246 pp., 260 pp.

2 volumes in-12 (190x120 mm), cream cloth with a bradel binding, smooth spine (bindings from the 19th century). Wear and rubbing on the covers, pages untrimmed. Missing paper p. 69 without loss of text. Interior fresh, no foxing.

Original edition; missing Custine’s portrait in the frontispiece of Volume I

The text was directed by General L. Baraguey d’Hilliers, the chief of staff and friend of General Custine.

The work retraces his military career, marked by successes (such as the Virginia campaign during the American War of Independence) and failures (notably the loss of Mainz and Condé-sur-Escaut), as well as his political entanglements with the Committee of Public Safety and Robespierre. Baraguey d’Hilliers describes Custine as a rigorous general, sometimes severe, but also as a victim of revolutionary intrigues. The text aims to rehabilitate his memory, while offering a testimony on the wars of the Revolution and the tensions between the army and political power.