This is a two volume work with plates by Bernard Coppens, Patrice Courcelle, Daniel Lordey, and Michel Petard, four of the best uniformologists and illustrators in the field. It was published in 1997 by Editions Quatour.
Volume I: TROUPES FRANCAISES, TROUPES ALLIEES:
166 plates including 15 weapons plates: L’etat Major, La Garde Imperiale, L’Infanterie de la Ligne, La Cavalerie, L’Artillerie, Le Genie, Le Train, La Gendarmerie, La Garde Nationale, La Garde de Paris, Les Troupes Corses, Les Compagnies de Reserve, Le Service de Sante, Les Ecoles Militaires, Les Troupes Suisses et Les Regiments Etrangersm Les Troupes de Marine, Les Troupes Alliees.
Volume II: TROUPES ETRANGERES: 157 plates including numerous plates showing regimental distinctions: L’Armee Anglaise, L’Armee Autrichienne, L’Armee Prussienne, L’Armee Russe, L’Armee Espagnole, L’Armee Portugaise, L’Armee Suedoise, L’Armee Hollando-Belge, Hanovre et Brunswick.
Editions Quatour
All the publications are bound in oriental silk or full leather, printed in large format (245 cm x 320 cm) in a box, heavy weight and all in color, in 300 or 600 copies, all numbered by hand, very richly illustrated with rare and even previously unpublished iconography, and written by the best historians of the Empire.
These works, once out of print, are never republished. Only quasi-artisanal work can claim this high-value aesthetic quality, essential for documenting and illustrating the epic of Napoleon.
Founded in 1994, the Quatuor Editions have always had the essential task of highlighting Napoleonic history, mainly from the point of view of military campaigns, to explain the fundamental causes of the Napoleonic wars, and to describe all the aspects of this era, both strategic and tactical, by appealing to combatants, witnesses, historians, and painters.
The Quatour mission in their own words:
It has always seemed important to document this period, beginning in 1796 in the Piedmontese hills and the rich Lombard plains and ending in the stifling heat of June 1815 at Waterloo, with available and new imagery and historical narrative.
It was not possible to highlight this epic, full of noise and fury and absolutely exceptional in the history of France, without illustrating it in the most magnificent way with the help of the greatest painters, illustrators, and historians, contemporary of that time or not.