AUBARET (Gabriel). French-Annamite and Annamite-French vocab - Lot 6

AUBARET (Gabriel). French-Annamite and Annamite-French vocabulary. Preceded by a treatise on Annamite particles. Bangkok, Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique, 1861. Two parts in one volume, in-8, (4)-XCV-(1)-96 p. ; (2)-157 p., contemporary half tan basane, smooth spine (worn binding). Rare first edition of the first Franco-Vietnamese dictionary "printed by order of M. le Vice-Amiral Charner commandant en chef des forces navales françaises dans l'Indo-Chine" at a time when French military authorities were facing the first anti-colonial insurrections in Indochina (1858-1873). A naval officer and diplomat, Frigate Captain Gabriel Aubaret (1825-1894) was the first French consul in Bangkok in 1863, whose real mission was to conduct negotiations with the Imperial Court in Hué for the cession of the Cochinchina provinces to France. A brilliant orientalist, this Vocabulaire was his first published work, printed by the Catholic mission in Bangkok, and printed in 200 copies according to Georges Taboulet. Provenance: Antique stamp on title with crowned eagle reading "Ex. de Cochichine Chef d'Etat-Major"; handwritten bookplate dated 1952; red Asian stamp on title repeated. (Cordier, Indosinica IV, 2287-2288. See also: G. Taboulet, Les Débuts de l'amiral Bonard en Cochinchine : la désignation, le voyage de Toulon à Saïgon, 1861, in: Bulletin de la Société des études indochinoises. N.S., T. XVII, N° 2, 1942).