224 - [NAPOLEON]IVERNOIS, Francis d'. A collection of three rare economic pamphlets, in first editions.

[NAPOLEON]IVERNOIS, Francis d'. A collection of three rare economic pamphlets, in first editions. Three rare first editions criticizing the administration of Napoleon I and the Continental Blockade, published in London and Reichenbach between 1811 and 1813 and bound together in a facsimile collection with an English-style binding. 3 titles in 1 in-8 volume (212 x 155 mm), speckled brown half-calf with glossy corners, smooth spine divided by double gilt fillets and a repeated gilt harp embossing, green leather title label, speckled edges. Contemporary English binding. Binding slightly faded, early signs of cracking at the joints; the last two leaves of the third text were trimmed short during binding, with no loss of text. Three first editions bound together in a valuable composite volume: - History of Bonaparte’s Commercial Decrees and Their Effects on Agriculture, Manufacturing, Commerce, and Finance in France. London, Vogel and Schulze, 1811. (1 f.) – XII and 94 pp. - Napoleon as Administrator and Financier, a follow-up to the Historical and Political Account of the Losses Caused to the French People by the Revolution and the War... London, Schulze and Dean, 1812. XI and 329 pp. - (1 f. of errata). - Summary of the Report on the Situation of the French Empire, presented to the Legislative Body at its session of February 25, 1813. Reichenbach [Saxony], n.p., 1813. (2 ff.) - 106 pp. - (2 ff., preface and errata). Sir Francis d’Ivernois, a Genevan politician and economist (1757–1842) who had taken refuge in England, here puts his talents to work in the fight against Napoleon. Unlike the purely satirical or literary pamphlets of his time, the power of his writing lies in a scientific, dispassionate, and ruthless analysis. In *History of Bonaparte’s Commercial Decrees* (1811) and *Napoleon: Administrator and Financier* (1812), he demonstrates through statistics that the Continental Blockade is ruining French agriculture and industry far more than it is stifling Great Britain. This indictment of the exorbitant cost of war reaches its geopolitical climax in the third work, *Exposé de l’Exposé* (1813): published clandestinely in Reichenbach in the heart of the German countryside in the aftermath of the disaster in Russia, this rebuttal to Minister Montalivet’s official report delivers a scathing technical critique of the financial management of Minister Martin Michel Charles Gaudin. Handwritten notes in black ink in the upper margins of the title pages: “proof” and “for the author’s review” (trimmed), and the third is illegible. A fine copy in a contemporary English-style binding.