PORTALIS Joseph-Marie. Mes Souvenirs politiques. Manuscript S.l., s.d., 8 parts in-8 or in-4 forming [826] ff. covered with various fine scripts, in leaves preserved in large red chagrin-backed slipcase, gray suede interior. Exceptional manuscript file, kept in the Portalis family, containing unpublished reminiscences of the son of Jean-Etienne-Marie Portalis (1746-1807), considered one of the Fathers of the Civil Code, Joseph-Marie Portalis (1778-1858). They were probably written under the Empire, perhaps during the period of forced rest that followed his resounding disgrace in January 1811. In any case, at one point he mentions Joseph Bonaparte, known during the Revolution, and gives the date 1807. He evokes many personal memories of his father. Never finished, never really written out, these notes, sometimes very confused by variants and corrections, were passed on to his family after the death of the First President of the Court of Cassation. The mention of "my dear father-in-law" in several places in the document points to Portalis' son-in-law, Rodolphe Saillard (1789-1878), husband of his eldest daughter Stéphanie (1802-1865). This is the only known manuscript of Portalis's memoirs. The file is made up of several successive editorial layers: I. The author's autograph manuscript proper, haphazardly composed on a large number of loose-leaf pages. Under an orange folder, a table of contents has been compiled and assembled, covering the entire first draft and allowing us to identify a few gaps. II. A first draft, still in manuscript, dating from the mid-nineteenth century, executed by several hands, in a folder under the title Copie des Mémoires de mon cher beau-père (Copy of the Memoirs of my dear father-in-law). III. A posthumous clean-up in the form of a partial printed publication: these Souvenirs were in fact published in a very fragmentary form in Les Séances et travaux de l'Académie des sciences morales et politiques (1859 and 1860). Fierro missed this publication. The period covered by these printed extracts covers the pre-Revolutionary years (1787-1789) and the Revolution itself, from the convening of the Estates General to September 1797, when the young Joseph-Marie, aged just nineteen, accompanied his father into exile. These pages shed light on Portalis senior's conduct during the 1789 Revolution and the Terror. Similarly, the repercussions of the great revolutionary upheavals in Provence, especially in the Aix region, are well documented. With the exception of these two chapters, the memoirs, to which several successive generations of Portalis contributed, have remained unpublished and deserve to be published. A well-presented copy in a perfectly executed, luxurious grey suede-lined slipcase.