| Summary | "[I]t was transported to Rome by Philippe Couplet who happened to give it to Cardinal d'Estrées (1628-1714). D'Estrées, the dedicatee of the French edition, then passed it on to Bernou in Paris. Since part of the manuscript was damaged, Bernou had to make various changes to the original, including altering the structure of the work, adding notes at the end of each chapter, and drawing the map of Beijing that accompanies the text. Here, Bernou benefitted from the fact in addition to being an important official in the French Marine Ministry (département de la marine), he was also an avid cartographer who was responsible for a number of the earliest maps of New France (Canada)." Stuart M. McManus, Bringing Together China and the West: Books of Early Modern Western Sinology in the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2023), p. 117. |
