Beschreibung
193 forage dockets signed by French officers. Stored in sets or singly within contemporary printed French Army archival envelopes, in turn stored in four collector's portfolios (ca. 1900). Includes a typescript catalogue ("Katalog des Konvoluts von Formularen der Régie des Fourrages, Place de Leipzig, Okt. 1806-März 1807"). 100 pp. All bound in half cloth with handwritten cover title, small folio (ca. 23 x 28 cm). An encompassing collection of forage receipts from French-occupied Leipzig, signed by important Napoleonic officers (many commanding), including Jacques Allain (1773-1851), Louis Hullin de Boischevalier (1770-1809), Louis-Jacques de Coehorn (1771-1813), Joseph Goll (1771-1850), Jean-Michel Haudebault (1766-1837), Louis-Joseph Maupoint (1766-1850), Simon Prévost de Vernois (1778-1859), Jean-Gaspard René (1769-1808), Auguste Talhouet (1788-1842), Jean-Marie de Varlet (1775-1857), and Charles-Louis Vimeux (1787-1859). - Although the cheaper and more flexible infantry continued to form the backbone of the Napoleonic army and Napoleon's attention as a military commander was always to the artillery, horses were indispensable not only for the cavalry units of the fighting arms, but also for army logistics, not least for moving the heavy cannons. However, in the early 19th century horses were a scarce commodity for the overstretched French coffers: most studs lay outside the country's borders, and the gaps that the mass exodus of the nobility had inflicted on the ranks of the cavalry officers were only slowly being stopped by returning emigrés and promotions of younger soldiers. It is therefore little surprise that all expenses disbursed upon the almost unjustifiably costly animals were recorded with meticulous precision - especially those for the incessant foraging. - The present collection of receipts, stored together in envelopes pre-printed by the French army, bears witness to the scrupulous organisation of horse provisioning. When Prussia and Saxony were occupied by France after the battles of Jena and Auerstedt on 14 October 1806, Marshal Davout entered Leipzig on 18 October, and indeed, the first forage docket preserved here is dated October 19th. The receipts are written by secretaries, sometimes on pre-printed forms, and signed by the various officers, NCOs, soldiers, and military officials, with secretarial counter-signatures. - Mostly preserved in excellent condition within their original archival envelopes, lacking only a very few sheets (as compared to the envelopes' captions). Inserted into four portfolios early in the 20th century and catalogued in a typed list with biographical notes on the writers. Compared to the inventory as listed ca. 1928, the present set no longer includes a "small folder" that appears mainly to have comprised receipts by Bory, Guyardet, Siry, Souplet, Thevenet, and Varlet (of which the form envelopes and two receipts still remain). - Provenance: Assembled from the German trade (including R. Hönisch and W. Hiersemann of Leipzig and H. Burmeister and J. A. Stargardt of Berlin), mainly between 1918 and 1928 (with additions to 1938) by an unnamed collector who, according to his catalogue, lived in Zehlendorf, served on the Macedonian front in 1918, and hailed from a military noble family whose estate was in Appelwerder (West Prussia); his unidentified arms are stamped on page 1. Acquired from a private collector. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 49370
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