101 - [Manuscript] [Empire] DEMANCHE (Jean-Louis). Account of My Captivity in Spain. One volume, in-8 format, bound in red chagrin, with a ribbed spine adorned with gold lettering; the title is gilded on the front cover and framed by corner fleurons. Unpaginated (128 handwritten pages).

[Manuscript] [Empire] DEMANCHE (Jean-Louis). Account of My Captivity in Spain. One volume, in-8 format, bound in red chagrin, with a ribbed spine adorned with gold lettering; the title is gilded on the front cover and framed by corner fleurons. Unpaginated (128 handwritten pages). A precious family manuscript copy, transcribed in 1885 by Alfred Huvet-Demanche from the family archives, based on the account of captivity written in 1818 by his grandfather Jean-Louis Demanche. Born in Reims in 1788, Jean-Louis Demanche joined the War Department in 1806 and was appointed the following year as provisional deputy to the commissioners of war. Sent to Spain in April 1808 and attached to the 2nd Division of General Dupont’s corps, he was taken prisoner during the campaign that would end with the surrender at Bailén. In this text, J.L. Demanche recounts the two years of captivity he spent, notably on the Spanish pontoon ships in the harbor of Cádiz, followed by his escape by swimming alongside a cuirassier officer on May 16, 1810. Alfred Huvet-Demanche explains the origin of his transcription in his preface: “My grandfather, Jean-Louis Demanche, was born in Reims in 1788. A War Commissioner under the First Empire, he was taken prisoner in Spain following the disastrous surrender in 1808. He spent nearly two years on the pontoon ships in the harbor of Cádiz. On May 16, 1810, he managed to escape by swimming, and owed his survival solely to the devotion of one of his friends, a Cuirassier officer who had escaped alongside him. Eight years later, while stationed at one of his garrisons (in Alsace), he wrote down some notes about his captivity in Spain. I have collected these precious notes with reverent respect (...).” Long unpublished, this account appeared for the first time in 1926 in the *Carnet de la Sabretache*, nos. 303–305, under the title *Account of My Captivity in Spain in 1808, 1809, 1810*. Tulard, *Critical Bibliography of Memoirs on the Consulate and the Empire*, no. 419.