César Lecat de Bazancourt - Les Expéditions de Chine et de Cochinchine - 1861-1862

BAZANCOURT (César, Baron de)
The Expeditions to China and Cochinchina. According to official documents.
Paris, at Amyot, 1861-1862.
2 volumes, 8vo (21 x 13.5 cm), half calf (period binding), smooth gilt spine with decoration, coat of arms at the center of the upper board, cold-decorations on the boards, roll border on the edges, price label on the pastedown, gilt edges, [4]-iii-426; [6]-413 pages (complete). Corners, endsheets and spine worn, scattered foxing. Good overall condition.
Original edition.

The work retraces in a chronological and official manner the French military interventions in the Far East between 1858 and 1860; it first describes the Cochinchina expedition, marked by the attack on Tourane, the stagnation of operations, and then the capture of Saigon in 1859, which opened the way to the durable establishment of France in Indochina, followed by the China expedition conducted jointly with Great Britain during the Second Opium War, including the battles of the Pei-Tse-Li gulf, the capture of the Ta-ku forts, the march on Beijing and the signing of the Beijing Convention of 1860, after allied troops entered the capital and the destruction of the Summer Palace, the whole presented from a military and political perspective favorable to French action.

PROVENANCE: Weapons of the Imperial Lycée of Charlemagne. A secondary and higher education establishment in the Marais district, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, founded in 1804.

Good copy.