L'Empire chinois faisant suite à l'ouvrage intitulé : Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet

Second edition, issued in the same year as the first, and illustrated with a folding colour map at the beginning of the first volume (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 2120; Caillet, 5293; Numa Broc, Asie, 247-249).

Tears to one joint of the first volume; spine of the second volume split with minor losses; a tear without loss to p. 407 of vol. II.

A valuable copy, bearing the signature "G. Rocquemaurel" on the title-pages.

This is Louis François Gaston Marie Auguste de Rocquemaurel (Toulouse, 1804–1878), a former student of the École polytechnique, second-in-command to Dumont d'Urville as lieutenant aboard the Astrolabe during the voyage to the South Pole and Oceania (1837–1840).

Promoted captain in 1848, he was posted from 1850 to 1854 to the French naval station in Indochina.

Published in 1850, Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet et la Chine broke off at the moment of the return journey, when Fathers Huc and Gabet had reached the frontiers of the Chinese Empire after their expulsion from Tibet.

The present work forms the continuation of that narrative: "Les Chinois, désireux de contrôler leurs déplacements, les obligent à prendre la route mandarine Lhassa-Canton, plus courte que la route de Pékin, mais plus accidentée et plus dangereuse. Bien escortés par des soldats qui les surveillent autant qu'ils les protègent, les deux missionnaires se dirigent vers le Se-Tchouen par Tchamdo, Batang et Tatsien-Lou […]. En septembre 1846, les deux Français sont remis par les autorités chinoises au consul de Hollande à Canton" (Numa Broc).

Huc returned to France in 1852 to devote himself to the publication of his works.

These attracted the attention of Napoleon III, who had the first edition of L'Empire chinois printed at the Imprimerie Impériale in 1854, in which the author sets out numerous observations on the customs of that country.