Generale Conte di Segur - Istoria di Napoleone e della Grande Armata nell'anno 1812 - Prima edizione italiana - Completa - 1825

Complete opera in 4 parts

With a large table that has been folded several times, 'Card for the story of Napoleon', designed by Perrot and etched in copper, with a depiction of Europe’s Russia, the Baltic Sea, a part of Denmark and Sweden, Prussia and Poland.

On the inside page four portraits showing half-length figures of Napoleon and the generals of the Grande Armée.

First Italian edition of the famous book by Segur, one of the best-known texts of Napoleonic literature, about the Russian campaign of the Grande Armée in 1812.

History of Napoleon and the Grande Armée in the year 1812 by General Count de Segur. 4 volumes.
Author: General Count de Segur
Year: 1825
Edition: first Italian edition
Publisher: Livorno, Vignozzi Printing
Dimensions: 16.5x9.6 cm
Pages: from 1 to 234 (Part I) - from 235 to 423 (Part II) - from 1 to 240 (Part III) - from 241 to 471 (Part IV)
Bound with titles on the spine
Condition: good pages; covers with signs of aging (see the photos)

Philippe-Paul de Ségur (Paris, 4 November 1780 – Paris, 25 February 1873) was a French soldier and historian.

Of noble descent, descendant of a line of ancestors who distinguished themselves as soldiers, writers and diplomats, he served as an officer of the Grande Armée in the Napoleonic wars and reached the rank of brigadier general, attached to Napoleon’s staff. He participated in all the major military campaigns of that period. After Napoleon’s fall he devoted himself to writing a series of historical works in which he described his experiences and the facts he knew about. His most important and famous work was History of Napoleon and the Grande Armée in the Year 1812, in which he vividly described the tragic Russian campaign with narrative power and rich detail, in which he had directly participated. This work, which quickly became a classic on the subject, remains one of the fundamental texts on the invasion and retreat of the Napoleonic army in 1812.

Philippe-Paul de Sègur belonged to an old noble family; some of its members had in earlier centuries risen to prominent figures in France, usually as soldiers or writers. In particular his grandfather Philippe-Henri was Marshal of France and Minister of War during Louis XVI’s reign; his uncle Joseph-Alexandre, by contrast, took part in Parisian social life and distinguished himself as a writer of great erudite works. His father, Louis-Philippe, was a man of varied interests and a peculiar personality who devoted himself to historical studies, but also was a soldier, courtier, diplomat, traveler, journalist and playwright.

Aware of the irreversible decline of the Old Regime, he joined the constitutional monarchy at the dawn of the French Revolution, but then, confronted with the progressive radicalization of the political conflict, he had to retreat with his family to Châtenay, near Paris, where he devoted himself to study and the education of children. The young Philippe-Paul, twelve years old at the time, experienced this period of retreat, economic problems and material concerns, and during his adolescence in Châtenay he immersed himself in culture, studied, and valued the great Greek and Latin historians.

After settling in Paris, where he wrote poems and articles for newspapers, Ségur had the opportunity to witness the passage of General Napoleon Bonaparte and his men on 18 Brumaire year VIII (9 November 1799) during their march to the Council of Ancients to initiate the military coup. Enthusiastic about the sight of the column led by the general, he would, according to his own account, have decided to change his life and begin a military career; at twenty he enlisted in the hussars and began a restless military career that he would continue throughout the Napoleonic period. He took part as a lieutenant in General Jean Victor Moreau’s campaign in Germany and later in the operations of General Étienne Macdonald in Switzerland during the War of the Second Coalition; by 1804 he was already a captain.

Within Napoleon’s circle, partly thanks to his father’s reintegration into public offices as Grand Master of Ceremonies, Ségur distinguished himself in all the ongoing military campaigns that followed the resumption of warfare in Europe; he fought at the Battle of Austerlitz, participated in the 1806 occupation of the Kingdom of Naples by the French army under Marshal Massena; after being promoted to major, he was wounded and captured during the 1807 Polish campaign. After release following the Tilsit agreements he took part in actions in Spain, where he distinguished himself at the Battle of Somosierra, where he was wounded again, and reached the rank of colonel.

After carrying out several diplomatic missions, Ségur was promoted in 1811 to temporary general and, included in Napoleon’s staff, he took part in the Russian campaign; always present beside the emperor during the volatile events of the war, he could make direct observations and understand all phases of the drama of the army, which he would later tell in his most famous work. After fighting in the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, Ségur decided, after Napoleon’s abdication, to accept the return of the Bourbons and took the oath.

General Gaspard Gourgaud strongly criticized Ségur’s works. The two even fought a duel.

During the Hundred Days Ségur again stood beside Napoleon, but because he had stayed in Paris, he was not present at the Battle of Waterloo. The end of the Napoleonic adventure affected him severely: dismissed from the army, he was admitted again in 1818, but was no longer taken into active service. From that moment Ségur decided to devote himself to his studies and began writing, especially devoted to telling, not only as a witness and memoirist but also as a historian, of the long and troubled Napoleonic epic in which he had played a leading role.

In 1824 he published History of Napoleon and the Grande Armée during the Year 1812 (“History of Napoleon and the Grande Army during the Year 1812”), which deals with the tragedy of the Russian campaign; it remains his most valuable and famous work; at the time it achieved extraordinary commercial success, with ten editions in just three years, was read with great interest by the public and provoked countless comments and controversy among historians and those involved in the events. The realistic and honest description of the events and especially the portrayal of Napoleon’s personality and behavior during the campaign irked the guardians of the Napoleonic myth and the emperor’s confidants; General Gaspard Gourgaud wrote a strongly critical work (Napoléon et la Grande Armée en Russie, ou Examen critique de l’ouvrage de M. le Comte Ph.de Ségur, 1825) in which he accused the author of falsification and amateurism. It even led to a duel between the two officers that ended with Ségur being wounded.

Despite the controversy, the works brought fame and success to the author, who was recognized as a member of the French Academy; the July Revolution and Louis-Philippe’s accession to the throne brought Ségur further honors, including appointment as lieutenant general and Duke of France. In the last period of his life, dying in old age in 1873, Ségur continued to study and compile historical works, including a “History of Charles VIII” (1834), which was only a first part of a general history of France, and especially his extensive work “History and Memoirs” that with rich information and direct testimonies covers the entire Napoleonic era; this work was published posthumously in 1873.

The Story of Napoleon and the Grande Armée in the Year 1812
Published only three years after Napoleon’s death, the History treated a topic that was still very current and that deeply affected the feelings and emotions of the many people who participated in the emperor’s extraordinary adventure. The author decided to provide an account of the dramatic campaign in Russia that would be as faithful to the facts as possible, aiming to maintain fundamental impartiality, by using an impersonal style and avoiding being directly present in the narrative. The writer shows an ability to analyze and interpret the events objectively without letting personal feelings drive the narrative; Ségur was, in fact, primarily intent on bearing witness to his comrades and conveying in the text his intimate memories of the tragic recollections, but despite this moral involvement the author succeeded in composing a work that was remarkably authentic and possessed great narrative power.

Ségur succeeds in presenting the grand historical fact with a wealth of detail, by effectively depicting the Grande Armée, its soldiers and its leaders, alternating the telling of great events with the description of smaller episodes, which are useful to sketch the daily life of Napoleonic soldiers. In this way the author is able to illustrate the tragedy of the French army in full, from the initial triumphant phase to the terrible end during the retreat.

Remarkable and original for its time is also the description Ségur gives of Napoleon during the Russian campaign; he was a great admirer of the emperor and shared the general exaltation about his qualities, but despite this fundamental assessment the author managed to go beyond Napoleonic idolization and to paint the emperor in his physical and psychological reality, describing his faults, weaknesses, uncertainties and defects. In Ségur’s work the explanation given by the author for the causes of the defeat and Napoleon’s motivations during the campaign is not wholly satisfactory; he emphasizes above all the precarious physical condition of the emperor and ascribes his failure largely to the manifestation of a disease that would undermine his resolve and morale and would lead to his death in 1821. More generally, Ségur limited himself to attributing the primary responsibility for the Grande Armée’s defeat to a supposed fatality of History and an unlucky Lot, without detailing the actual political, strategic and logistical causes of the downfall of the French army in Russia.

From the stylistic perspective of Ségur, tied to classical literary schemes, he wanted to model himself on great ancient historians; therefore there are in his work some typical stylistic elements, such as emphasis, rhetoric, sometimes complicated periodization, and also the insertion of fictional speeches by the protagonists. Nevertheless, despite this literary equipment, History has retained its value and charm over time, especially due to the author’s strong emotional involvement in the tragedy told, which he described with passion and sincerity.

Modern historians continue to value Ségur’s work; while Jean Tulard calls it a “classic,” Luigi Mascilli Migliorini, one of the leading Italian academic experts on the revolutionary and Napoleonic period, writes that History “remains one of the greatest works on the Russia campaign.”