MANUSCRIPT MANOEUVRES
[MILITARIA.]
Instruction provisoire arrêtée par le roi, concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres de l’infanterie du 20 Mai 1788.
Montauban, Vincent Teulières, 1788.
8vo, pp. 239, [1, blank], vi, [2, errata]; tear to inner margin of title, a few small tears elsewhere, some creasing to corners, a few ink stains, occasional light foxing; otherwise a good copy in contemporary mottled sheep, gilt lettering-piece to spine; boards slightly bowed, wear to extremities; near-contemporary annotations and corrections to 39 pp.; modern bookplates of ‘Colonel V. Sculfort’ and ‘Ch. Cazeneuve'.
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Instruction provisoire arrêtée par le roi, concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres de l’infanterie du 20 Mai 1788.
A seemingly unrecorded edition of these pre-French Revolution instructions on infantry manoeuvres, printed at Montauban in the south of France, with several passages updated in manuscript by a practising soldier.
Whole passages are crossed through and rewritten, reflecting evolving French military tactics over time. So, for example, the distance between ranks determined in the printed text as one foot is altered in manuscript to 21 inches from the heels of the man behind to those of the man in front. There are numerous changes to the passages on rifle drill and firing, as well as an explanatory note on officers.
The printer Vincent Teulières (1748–1820) inherited the family business from his mother Marie-Armande Fontanel, and served as official printer to the town of Montauban. When his shop was damaged in a riot in 1790 he moved to Cahors, and from there to Paris.
No copies of this edition traced on OCLC or CCfr.
