Alexis BOYER Lot n° 8

(Uzerche 1757-1833) surgeon; appointed first surgeon of Napoleon (1804), he accompanied the Emperor during the campaigns of Prussia and Poland (1806-1807). 38 L.A.S. or L.A., January 1806-July 1807, to his nephew Antoine VARELIAUD (Uzerche 1776-1840), surgeon at the Charité in Paris; 63 pages in-4 or in-8, addresses with postmarks, notably of the Grande Armée or of the Service du Cabinet de l'Empereur (qqs letters with missing parts and repairs), roughly mounted on tabs or glued directly on sheet, the whole bound in a half-basket volume in-4 (worn binding). Exceptional correspondence written during the War of the Fourth Coalition that Boyer led at the side of the Emperor, and in particular about the battle of Eylau and the peace of Tilsitt, but also about his work as a surgeon on the battlefields. This correspondence is written from Warsaw, Berlin, Osterode, Oliva, Finckenstein, Morunghen, Tilsitt and Dresden, from January 1806 to July 1807. We can only give here a glimpse of them; thus, in this letter written from Osterode on March 29, 1807, where Boyer tells the battle of EYLAU. After the battle of Pultusk, where the enemy army was almost entirely destroyed, Napoleon had his troops take up winter quarters, but the Russians having attacked, "the emperor had his entire army march towards the end of January. As soon as the enemy was informed, he began his retreat; however, we reached him, and every day from the day we met him until the famous battle of Eylau, we fought. In all the battles, we always had the advantage, either on the side of the number of killed and wounded, or on the side of the guns and flags taken. The Battle of Eylau, although it was not decisive and cost us many people, will not be less an eternal monument of the military genius of our Emperor and the value of our soldiers. How indeed would one not consider as glorious a battle in which in spite of the double number of the Russians, the advantage of their position and an unexpected attack, we lost much less people than them, we took flags and cannons from them, and we remained masters of the battlefield. The emperor told me, the day after this battle, that if the snow had allowed him to observe and see the movement of his columns, and that the army corps of Marshal NEY had arrived in time, he would have taken half of the Russian army. Accustomed to winning easily and to taking twenty or thirty thousand prisoners in a battle, our army was stunned by the resistance of the Russians and even became discouraged [...] One of the causes that contributed most to this momentary discouragement was the shortage of food. The rapid march of the army and the bad roads did not allow food to arrive, so that our soldiers lived on what they found in the peasants' fields, especially potatoes. So they gave the battle of Eylau the name of Niema Cleba, because Cleba in Polish means bread and Niema, there is no bread. I had been so dazed by the fatigues and horrors of war that I found them much lower than the idea I had formed of them, at least in relation to myself and to all those who, like me, are not military. Indeed, one does not tire much in traveling in a well-sprung, well-trained, and well-stocked car; and it is true that one does not always have a good bed, but no one is less fussy about it than I am. As far as horrors are concerned, I don't see much difference between a battlefield and an anatomy amphitheater; so I can say, without affecting a hardness of heart that I don't have, that I have walked through all the battlefields without feeling any emotion by the sight of the bodies they were covered with. I always found, on the contrary, that there was never enough of them, that is to say of the bodies of the Russians"... After a series of battles which ends with Friedland, the talks begin (7 letters written from Finkenstein and Morunghen, and 10 letters from Tilsitt between May and July 1807). Finkenstein May 13, 1807: "Yesterday, one of the most outstanding characters of the Russian army, the prince or the count of LABANOFF came on mission to our Emperor who made him dine with him, and I know from good part that the great Napoleon drank to the health of the Emperor Alexander and of the braves who compose his army, and that Mr. de Labanoff drank on behalf of his master to the health of the Emperor Napoleon. You can easily judge the joy that these precursory symptoms of peace cause to all the French who are on the left bank of the Niémen, and to me in particular "... June 2: "the emperor having gone to Danzig for three days, I cannot use the way of the mail of the cabinet to send you my letters [...] I remained in Finckenstein with