[SOULT NICOLAS JEAN DE DIEU]: (1769-1851) Marshal of France, Duc de Dalmatie. An interesting and lengthy contemporary manuscript, fifteen pages, 4to, being the transcriptions of the Cadiz Regency gazette, dated 12th January 1813. The provenance being Marshal Soult´s own personal files. The manuscript mostly reports on the 29th and last bulletin of the Grande Armée, dated 2nd December 1812, containing Napoleon´s message to the French explaining the reasons of the defeat in the Russian campaign. The gazette title states `..Bonaparte makes the most deplorable description of his Grande Armée, the one he thought, with his crazy ambition, would conquer one day the Russian Empire.´ A legendary bulletin dictated by Napoleon to Caulaincourt, making the weather largely responsible of the defeat. The manuscript transcriptions also reports on Great Britain and Malta, and includes a speech published in Saint Petersburg. About VG £100-150