SOLDIER'S LETTER. Letter from a chasseur voltigeur, addressed to his parents. Paris, November 30, 1812; 2 pages of correspondence on 4 leaves in-4°, folds tired, with address. Illustrated with a period color engraving with portraits of Napoleon and Empress Marie-Louise framing a soldier. Autograph letter from soldier Bonaventure Guerin, grenadier tirailleur of the Imperial Guard in the 2nd regiment, at the Military School of Paris, addressed to his parents in Le Lude. He tells of his time at the barracks in Courbevoie (often these illustrated letters are dated Courbevoie). This letter is exceptional, because it is very rare indeed to have color in the letters under the First Empire and one finds these illustrated letters only in certain papers with letters, sold by the canteen girls to the bivouac with the soldiers a little fortunate. These letters were often read in the villages, aloud, on the village square, for the whole neighbourhood gathered for the occasion. Thus, in the depths of France, there were public accounts of the events that were taking place on the battlefields of Europe. The letter represented the conscript who had left to carry the colours of France to the farthest reaches of Europe.