Geslin cadet [?]. Promotion des Officiers de la Compagnie des Indes. Du 28 7bre 1756. [Suivi de ] Tableau de la marine de la Compagnie des Indes arrêté par une délibération du 2 août 1766. Promotion de 1747. No place, no date [1766]. Elegant, highly legible pen-and-ink manuscript in the same hand, text in italics, title and running title of the first part in roman. 2 parts in a notebook in-32 (9 x 5,5 cm for the manuscript, 9,8 x 6 cm for the binding) consisting of one blank page, one title page, 25 unnumbered pages and one blank page; one title page, 39 unnumbered pages and 3 blank leaves. Text framed. Contemporary red morocco, flat spines decorated with gilt pampers, Dubuisson-style plate decoration on covers, gilt roulette on edges, gilt floral lace on inner, blue tabis endpapers, gilt edges.
Interesting handwritten list of sailing officers in the service of the French East India Company, by rank: captains, lieutenants and ensigns, between 1756 and 1766. The French East India Company was in its last throes: between 1756 and 1766, the Seven Years’ War ended to France’s disadvantage, and the Treaty of Paris of 1763 sanctioned the loss of almost all of its first colonial empire. The East India Company lost both its territorial bases and more than half its fleet. Choiseul decided to suspend it in 1769, opening up the Asian trade to private enterprise.
Crosses in ink in the margin next to some names probably mark their deaths.
Yves Devaux, in Dix Siècles de reliure, to illustrate “Almanac Bindings”, reproduces this binding, specifying in the caption that this “notebook […] is made of sheets of white paper. The plate decorating the binding is in a style close to that of almanacs.” (Y. Devaux, Dix Siècles de reliure, Paris, Pygmalion, 1977, p. 181).
Marks of provenance: On the first blank page, has been traced in pen: « en 1764 tant en Capne qu’en 1er Lieut. il n’y a que 44 avant Geslin Cadet » [“in 1764 both in Captain and 1st Lieutenant there are only 44 before Geslin Cadet”]
« Geslin cadet » is listed as first lieutenant in 1756, and a« Geslin de Chateaufao [?] » promoted in 1766, the only officer distinguished by a cross in the margin of the entire second part. Could this be a relative of naval officer Louis Anne Pierre Geslin, chevalier de Trémergat (1743-1795), who took part in numerous naval battles, losing a leg in the process? A deputy to the States of the Province of Brittany in 1786-1787, he emigrated during the Revolution to Jersey and then to London, where he died. He was vice-director of the Académie royale de Marine.
This note is followed, in pencil, by another hand with a provenance mark: « 1800 Julien [?] Lancelot, charpantier, sa cousine se nome janneton. Sur le chemin de Pontivi » [“carpenter, his cousin’s name is janneton. On the way to Pontivi”.]
Discreet restoration to binding, small hole to one leaf with small tear, not serious.
A precious document in a sumptuous binding.
2 800 €