LIFE AND LOVES OF MARIE WALEWSKA. With 18 illustrations including 11 hitherto unpublished de D;ORNANO, Count - 1934

Montreal: Louis Carrier. 1934. First Canadian Edition. Hardcover. The trade issue (also a limited ed. of 99 copies). Octavo, decorated cloth stamped in white. pp 429, [3] + plates. Small tear at head of very lightly sunned spine neatly repaired, bit of bubbling to front pastedown, else a bright, fine, jacketless copy." Maria Countess Walewska (née Laczynska; 7 December 1786 - 11 December 1817) was a Polish noblewoman and a mistress of Emperor Napoleon I. In her later years she married count Philippe Antoine d'Ornano, an influential Napoleonic officer." - Wikipedia. Her life was the basis of the 1937 film "Conquest", starring Greta Garbo and Charles Boyer. Walewska claimed she became Napoleon's mistress for patriotic reasons, to elict his aid in freeing Poland from the Habsburgs, Prussia, and Russia. .