Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases

Emmanuel-Augustin-Dieudonné-Joseph, comte de Las Cases (21 June 1766 – 15 May 1842) was a French atlas-maker and author, famed for an admiring book about Napoleon, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène ("The Memorial of Saint Helena").

He was born at the castle of Las Cases near Revel in Languedoc. He was educated at the military schools of Vendôme and Paris. He entered the navy and took part in various engagements during the years 1781–1782. The outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 caused him to go into exile. He spent some years in Germany and England, participating in the disastrous Quiberon expedition (1795). He was one of the few survivors and returned to London, where he lived in poverty, until finding his vocation as a private tutor.

In 1801, in London and under the pseudonym, A. Lesage, he published in English the original edition of his famous atlas, which immediately proved a great success. Returning to Paris after the Peace of Amiens (1802), and having received amnesty, he issued the first French edition in 1803-1804, called Atlas historique, genealogique, chronologique et geographique de A. Lesage. Multiple editions, translations, spin-offs, several pirated, followed down to the 1850s. The atlas made Las Cases rich. It came to Napoleon's notice only when, in Las Cases's company, he went into exile on St Helena (1815).

The Peace of Amiens (1802) made provision for an amnesty for émigrés. Renouncing his hereditary title of marquis, Las Cases availed himself of this amnesty to repatriate himself. He returned to France during the Consulate with other royalists who rallied to the side of Napoleon, and stated afterwards to the emperor that he was conquered by his glory. Not until 1810 did he receive much notice from Napoleon's government, which then made him a chamberlain and created him a count of the empire. After the first abdication of the emperor (April 11, 1814), Las Cases retired to England, but returned to serve Napoleon during the Hundred Days.

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