Voyage à la Louisiane, et sur le continent de l'Amérique septentrionale, fait dans les années 1794 à 1798
Paris: Dentu, 1802.
First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. 8vo, pp. viii, 382, with folding map. Recent three-quarter leather and marbled boards, with new endpapers. Light foxing to map, else fine. Rather than a travel narrative, this work contains a somewhat disorganized assemblage of historical and political information and commentary. Streeter (1571) describes it as a "history of the French occupation of Louisiana with observations on the form of government, on Negro slavery and other general topics, with notes on the Indian tribes." Field says the work "is principally notable for "Two Vocabularies of the Savages," the Naoudoouessis and the Chipouais." Clark (II:76) suggests that the book may have been "written in a hurry when [Baudry] heard that Louisiana was returning to France to (1) assert the importance of that colony and (2) set down his thoughts on colonial administration in general, some of which are not bad, and on the development of Louisiana in particular. He mixes in a vast amount of extraneous material on the Indians (mostly non-Louisiana Indians), some history, and lists of fauna, flora, products, and insupportable generalizations (as a fair example, the air of New Orleans is salubrious, the women are moral, pink of cheek, and white of tooth)." The map, titled "Louisiane et Pays Voisins, d'Apres les Relations et les Cartes les Plus Recentes," shows most of what is now the United States, including early settlements on the Gulf Coast west of New Orleans and many native American villages and settlements. Wagner-Camp 1a; Howes B-234; Sabin 3979.
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