Kenneth Spencer Research Library Archival Collections

This album of scenic views of buildings, topography and architectural details seems to been assembled by an amateur or student artist with the initials H.P. They probably record travels in Denmark, France, Switzerland and Britain circa 1889-1890, but some of the sketches may have been made from photographs.

Group of songs, without music, collected into a single volume, possibly in France. Includes love songs, light songs, drinking songs, political songs. Napoleon is mentioned; sometimes gives name of tune or of opera.

Documents concerning Claude de Guénégaud's defense against an accusation of having falsified and suppressed the Rolls of 1654 and 1657 in France. Bound collection of 1 manuscript and 9 pamphlets, some with manuscript annotations.

This collection consists of a single letter written by an amanuenses for Claude Petiet, the French Minister of War, regarding backpay for the gendarmes. Written on both sides of a single sheet, the letterhead states "Liberte Egalite" with a motif in the middle for the French Republic.

Collection of 72 separately written accounts of Parliamentary debates, political law-cases, diplomatic correspondence, etc., bound together in two volumes. Most (perhaps all) are near-contemporary copies of the originals.

This volume includes 39 copies of charters originally dated between 1268 and 1544. These charters record property acquisitions, marriage settlements, and other financial arrangements made by the Campront family of Normandy, France.

This collection of manuscripts and published sources concerns the life and ancestry of Richard D'Olier of Dublin, Ireland, a leader in 18th century Dublin Methodism whose Huguenot ancestors emigrated from France to Ireland. Included is a memoir recounting the 1793 to 1794 imprisonment of the Richard D'Olier family members who were residing at Montauban in the south of France when the Reign of Terror commenced.

The Gaufridy Collection includes 1,880 manuscript letters and documents received by the Marquis de Sade's estate manager, Gaspard Gaufridy, and other materials from the Marquis, his wife, and other correspondents during the last quarter of the 18th century. The correspondence primarily concerns the management of the de Sade family estates. Also present are draft transcriptions in modernized French prepared in the mid-1960s by University of Kansas faculty and their students.

Copy of a treaty between France and Spain and Valais during the reign of Louis XIV, possibly copied in 1730. "Renouuellement d'alliance entre le Roi tres Chretien de France et de Nauarre d’une part et les louables Cantons Catholiques de la Suisse et la louable Republique de Valais de l'autre fait a Soleure le 9 mai 1715."

Bound book of poems, annotated. Fair copy (holograph?) made apparently to present to the dedicatee, "Madame la Comtesse Blanche Uggeri de la Somaglia" (Somaglia, Bianca Uggeri Capece della, 1743-1822, of Piacenza). The volume includes social verses with semi-biographical notes on the Parisians who inspired them and their own poems. There are also some political allusions.

Collection of primarily political and military letters and manuscripts written by Colonel John Armstrong of the British Army of the early 18th century, an engineer and expert on the Dunkirk fortifications in France.

"Correspondence secrète et familière de M. de Maupeou Chancelier de France avec M. de Sorhouet con[seill]er du nouveau Parlement." Correspondence of Mathieu François Pidansat de Mairobert, 1727-1779, copied into a volume.

Trader's personal records of Eugene Chauvet (journal, historical essays, natural history, family papers, logbooks, vade-mecum, child's sketches, and other related materials). The principal part of these papers is his "Ephemerides": a semi-journal particularly devoted to natural history (especially agricultural botany), his family life, illnesses, politics, logbooks of his travels, and to the history and description of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

An llustrated satire in French against the acting and audiences at the Odéon Theater, Paris,

Fragments of poems, prose, and other items from 16th century French diarist Pierre de L'Estoile.

Primarily medical receipts (informal directions for compounding and administering folk-remedies); some horse-medicine; also directions for making pigments, for fishing, for removing ink-spots, for secret writing, for catching birds, for making varnish, for mending china...

Travel diary kept by Monsieur L'Abbe G, professor emeritus at the University of Paris, to the southern provices of France in 1758.