Rare first edition of a manual of military strategy and cartography with elegant illustrations colour-printed in crayon-manner by the inventor of this technique, Louis Marin Bonnet. Charles Louis François Fossé (1734-1812) was a military engineer who distinguished himself in active service during the Seven Years War and as a military cartographer. The present work is a manual for the defence of and attack on small military positions (like a farmhouse, small forest, bridge etc.). In the second part Fossé explains the rules for charting landscapes and buildings on military maps, including the meaning of the different colours, and how to indicate the shooting range of the positions. The 11 topographic maps follow the main text, each hinged to the head margin of a letterpress caption page (verso blank) with an extensive list of features in the plates, keyed to them by letters and/or numbers. The maps fold up (and the folding ones then open out to form a double page) so that the reader can view the map above the
Slightly rubbed, spine damaged, hinges weak, but internally in very good condition. Brunet, II, col. 1354; Bénézit I, pp. 669-671; Fürstenberg, Das französische Buch im achtzehnten Jahrhundert und in der Empirezeit, p. 121; Graesse, II, p. 620; NBG XVIII, cols. 247-248; Thieme-Becker IV, pp. 312-313; for the author: Jacques Herold Louis-Marin Bonnet, catalogue de l'Oeuvre gravé, p. 28.