Jean-Claude-Michel Mordant de Launay (French, 1750-1816) The good gardener. Almanac for the year 1807... Dedicated and presented to Her Majesty the Empress Queen by M. de Launay Fort in-12. LXXX and 875 pages. Full long-grain green morocco. Framed by three straight fillets in which a broad roulette of vine shoots is inscribed; in the corners, the roulette stops at the line of a quadrilateral formed by the crossing of the straight fillets, bearing in its center a laurel wreath into which the letter J - Joséphine's initial - is thrust. Napoleon's arms in the center of the boards. Spine without nerves, divided into 6 compartments, including 1 for the title. Imperial eagle in the head compartment, surrounded by bees and laurel wreaths; floral or vegetal irons in the other compartments, surrounded by bees and fleur-de-lys. Straight and hatched irons on the cups. Inner scroll; pink silk tabis endpapers decorated with a scroll featuring a garland of flowers. All edges gilt. Contemporary binding signed "Rel. Le Febvre" on the tail. The copy is printed on high quality, very white, fine laid paper, free of blemishes and foxing. The copy bears the library bookplate of Rodolphe Auguste d'Ornano, son of Marie Waleska and General Philippe Antoine d'Ornano, cousin of Napoleon I. Jean-Claude-Michel Mordant de Launay. An encyclopaedia of gardening entitled "The good gardener, Almanac for the year 1807..." dedicated and presented to French Empress Joséphine by the author. A moving dedication "To Her Majesty the Empress Queen", Joséphine, née Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, who made her property at Malmaison the most beautiful acclimatization garden in France from 1800 to 1814, with passion and skill. Binding: Bindings with the coat of arms of the "Empress Gardener" are very rare. A binding with her coat of arms signed by a master bookbinder, bearing the initial J of the Emperor's beloved first name, on the gardeners' almanac dedicated to her, is undoubtedly one of the most desirable. P. Le Febvre, nephew of the Bozérian family, learned his art in their workshop. He joined forces with Jean-Claude Bozérian, and succeeded him in 1811. From 1806-1807, some bindings were signed with his name alone. Remarkably, whereas at the beginning of the 19th century, few people bothered to decorate their bindings with irons related to the subject of the volume, Le Febvre used "talking" irons on the spine of this work on gardens, such as an iron "au palmier" and two flower irons (rose and lily?) in addition to the roulette of pampres on the boards. This roulette de pampres or "bordure de vigne", which belongs to the Bozérian range, is considered by Béraldi to be "the most elegant of the Empire". He reproduces it, pushed onto a binding signed Bozérian, in his important work "La reliure au XIXème siècle" (Tome I, page 18). On this binding by Bozérian, as on this Almanach with the Empress's coat of arms bound by Lefebvre, quadrilaterals in the corners - called "rosettes" by Beraldi - interrupt the border and prevent the roulette from overlapping.