DOMENECH (Emmanuel). Journal d'un missionnaire au Texas et a - Lot 23

DOMENECH (Emmanuel). Journal d'un missionnaire au Texas et au Mexique [...]. 1846-1852. Paris, librairie de Gaume frères, 1857. In-8, xii-477-(3 of which the first and last are blank) pp, brown half-chagrin, cold-stamped ribbed spine (period binding). FIRST EDITION. Off-text lithographed fold-out map with hand-colored highlights. IMPORTANT TESTIMONIAL ON THE ACTIVITY OF CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES IN TEXAS, particularly among German-speaking immigrant communities (Germans, Swiss and Alsatians), against a backdrop of clashes with the Indians, cholera epidemics and war between the United States and Mexico - the latter, provoked by the secession of Mexican Texas and its subsequent integration into the American Union in 1845, lasted from 1846 to 1848. Abbé Domenech provides a vivid, sometimes uncompromising picture of these regions and their inhabitants at a decisive moment in Mexican-American history. EMMANUEL DOMENECH (1825-1903) was the son of a Lyonnais industrialist. Having completed his studies in St. Louis, Missouri (1846-1848), he was sent to Texas in 1848, ordained a priest in San Antonio, and worked until 1852 as a missionary's assistant in New Braunfels, Brownsville, Castroville and Eagle Pass. In poor health, he returned to France, where he published several works on the regions he had visited in America, covering geographical, ethnographic and archaeological aspects. In 1864, he was sent on a mission to Mexico by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who asked him to observe relations between Emperor Maximilian (supported by Napoleon III) and Marshal Bazaine. He took advantage of this to travel to Mexico, the West and then the North, anonymously as a military chaplain. He was then attached to the press service of Emperor Maximilian, before returning to France when the latter fell. While his archaeological skills were not without controversy, he remains an important witness to life and events in Mexico and early Texas. Provenance: "A. P. " (cold-stamped initials at tail of spine); Beaulieu library (armorial stamp ex-libris on faux-titre).