Jesuit missionary Joseph-Marie Amiot completed a manuscript entitled Mémoire sur la musique des chinois, tant anciens que modernes, sending it off to Paris where it was published in 1779 in an edition by Pierre-Joseph Roussier. Amiot’s manuscript works are however largely unknown today. This lecture compares the manuscript of the Mémoire with the published version, shedding light on the obtrusive editorial work of Roussier, who deleted more than seventy of Amiot’s original illustrations as well as substantial portions of the text.