Indiscretions of a Prefect of Police

FIRST UK EDITION. Count Pierre-François Réal (1757–1834) held some of the most feared offices in Napoleonic France. He helped Bonaparte to power, served throughout the Empire in the police apparatus, and was appointed prefect of police of Paris in 1815. After the fall that year he went into exile in the United States, built a “cup and saucer” house at Cape Vincent, New York, and is said to have contemplated a rescue of Napoleon from St Helena. He wrote these memoirs after returning to Paris in 1830, still speaking of himself in the third person; the original manuscript, the story goes, was bought and promptly burned by Louis-Philippe I. Hayward was a British writer on crime, punishment and social history, known among other things for his edition of Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals. Uncommon in such good order. BOOK: Publisher's purple cloth boards, black lettering to spine; tail of spine pressed inwards a tad, light foxing to fore edge and very faintly to front-matter; bookplate to front paste-down. DUST JACKET: Unclipped dust jacket priced 8/6 net to spine, bright and full with a surprising lack of wear.…