Old French Letter 1703 Help Needed

I'm struggling now with the translation. (I don't think I'll ever have all of it done.)

There are a number of misspellings and/or anachronisms, if that's what we can call them, in the letter. I do wish I had an 18th Century French dictionary here, but I don't. And I certainly don't know any of the idioms that might appear in the letter.

I have increased the contrast of the images a bit, and that seems to help, even if it's to better show the rush of letters that this writer has accomplished.

To clarify: the same abbreviations used in Latin manuscripts for centuries were also used in vernacular writing, in many cases. I was not suggesting the letter has Latin in it. I was pointing out that one has to be prepared to consider that some "letters" are actually abbreviations, as scotzm shows in his expansion ob+squiggle to obeissant.

The horizontal that loops back to make a vertical strike through the horizontal was used for a wide variety of "endings" but commonly for -is. The reader was supposed to know what to fill in because, by giving the first part of the word, the ending "was just obvious. . . ."

Thanks for the help KGB. And all on here. As a dealer I have so many old letters but not many in French this old. I notice even the English letters in the 17th & 18th Century had different spellings in the letters for instance 'F' replaced by an 'S'. Then there is old English I once had a letter 1655 written in the port at Jamaica by an admiral of the English fleet this was using the word Ye in it for The. I can see why there are so many collectors for these old letters.

My next challenge is to set a starting price for this 1703 French letter. Its a beauty but what's it worth? Thoughts on price. I would not start something like this at 99 cents.

Regarding "misspellings", KGB, orthography changed over the centuries, as a perusal of any 18thc English document will show. y and I can be interchanged as in the j'ay for j'ai early in the letter. One thing that helps is to sound the letters/syllables/words out as you read them. Less-than-fully literate writers wrote by ear. I'm sure you've seen this in US English letters from the 1800s. We think they people didn't know how to spell, and, in one sense, they didn't--didn't have standard spellings (which did exist, had come into being in the wake of printing) down pat. They spelled according to what their ear told them the word ought to be spelled as.

If you keep that in mind, some puzzles might be solveable in this letter.

I've seen German manuscripts from Bavaria in the 1400s where a word like Burg (in standard, modern German) is spelled "Burghhck". In a manuscript from north Germany it might be spelled "Burk"--the north (Low) German dialect is a very clipped, sharp German; the south German (Bavarian, Allemanic, Swabian) is a much more gutteral language. The poor Bavarian scribe was just putting down on paper what he heard everyday in the marketplace with his ear: Burghhrck. The north German scribe was doing the same.

This kind of localism could even bleed through into a scribe's Latin, though usually much more diffusely.

The same is true, I'm sure, for regions of France or England or Italy at the same time period, but I'm only familiar with the German regions.

I am sure Italy is the same I showed letters 1590 to 1680 in old Italian to someone from Italy and they could not read it. So misspellings were common back then each person had his own way or writing & spelling. As Hieronymus pointed out they spelled according to what their ear told them the word ought to be spelled as. You can see this with surnames to. When Napoleon took Holland his clerks had to try and spell Dutch names many got a new surname altogether. So it really does depend on the person who wrote the letter as to the spellings, maybe we won't have much luck translating this French one.

All true, Hieronymus. Even today I am not critical of an individual's spelling anomalies. After all, look at what the British do to English!

Well, actually it is an s. Again, standard Latin othography distinguished between an s in the middle of a word, at the end and so forth. The tall s looks like our f without a cross bar, but it's an s.

Keep in mind that the vernaculars (German, French, Italian, English) were not written languages, originally. Those who could read and write read and wrote Latin. Therefore the only writing system in western Europe was that used for Latin (well, yes, I know, there are the Scandinavian runes etc. but the basic point holds). If anything needed to be written down in one of the vernaculars (we have documents from the 800s and so forth written in these languages), they used the Latin orthography to represent German or Frankish or Anglo-Saxon sounds.

So those who are wondering why I keep bringing up Latin need to realize that the vernaculars were written with Roman/Latin letters. That's why you'll see the tall s in the Declaration of Independence, for example.

Now, concerning "Ye Olde Corner Pub and Brewery" and so forth: this "ye" is actually "the" and should be pronounced as "the."

The old letter Thorn or þorn (Þ, þ), found in Anglo-Saxon and old Scandinavian languages, was pronounced like we pronounce th. Google for the Wikipedia article on the letter thorn. By the early modern period in England it had been replaced by a y.

So in your admiral's letter, ye actually is pronounced the.

Keep in min

Thanks Hieronymus very informative info. Does anyone have an idea what this 1703 French letter is worth? I was thinking to start it at $99 in my auctions and see how it goes. I don't think its possible to get a summary of the contents due to the old writing and the issues we have with the spelling / abbreviations / meanings of some the words back then compared to today's modern language.

Folded Letters of this age typically go for $5-20 unless there is a tie to a famous person, place or event.

Unlikely this error goes only for $5-20 we are talking 1703 here 312 years ago. Whilst 1800 - 1840 may go for those prices if common anything close to the 16th century should go higher than that just for the age. Its beginning of the 17th century and is scarce regardless if a famous person, place or event is associated with the letter. I think it could go for $100+ just for it's age alone.

take a look at what jorhanstamps (in the Netherlands) has on offer on EBay--he has a lot of pre-philatelic stampless folded letter sheets, mostly from the early 1800s but occasionally from the early to late 1700s. Notice that they aren't selling very fast at the prices asked (mostly he prices in USD but occasionally in Euros). For something from, say 1730 with no unusual addressee or contents, he's asking around $30 (if my memory serves me well; do your own analysis to be sure).

If you could demonstrate that the letter contents are unusual, but that puts you right back where you started--needing a transcription and then translation of the text. For which a professional would charge a hundred dollars or more. So why would someone pay that much just for the chance to pay that much and more again to find out whether there's anything unusual in the contents of the letter? You need a starting price lower than $99 to make it worth someone's while. Maybe the upper end of Billsey
's suggested range isn't too far off as a starting point.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/36124621567...RK:MEBIDX:IT

That's a 1747 French letter with a wax seal addressed to a captain of artillery, very short, which went for $30.

1740, asking $34.99

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GERMANY-174...em58bbbd6044

He's asking $20-30 for what appear to be business letters from Hamburg to Bordeaux or Marseilles from the 1740s with extremely fine handwriting. Yes, yours is 1703 and it has a full text, probably not mere business, letter. On the other hand it's written in an execrable hand. But an execrable hand wouldn't matter if the contents proved interesting . . . . back to the cost of transcription and translation. . . .

Thanks Hieronymus I wish you hadn't shown me the seller jorhanstamps because I ended up buying some from him:) Anyway I went through his pricing he has 1680 no provenance France to Holland at $89. And many at various prices. And yes his French 1747 sold at $30. I may start this French letter at $40 and see if someone takes it. Thanks very much for the help everyone on here

duncan, don't despair of my getting an adequate translation done. I'll try to focus on the letter tomorrow.

Thanks KGB it maybe only be business but you never know

Duncan - Thanks to the length and matter-of-factness of the details, no wonder this letter had been kept as a family heirloom for over 300 years until the message ceased to be understood either because of the difficult handwriting and poor orthography or for other reasons.

Notwithstanding its age, it still is in admirable state of preservation. It must have been in good hands so far.

I have managed to decipher most of the gist of it but as you are a dealer (not an amateur collector) seeking to bring the item into profit, might I ask you to do me a good turn by getting me the following Australian stamps in flawless MNH condition (without any foxing, well-centred, with compete perfs, perfectly printed on speckless paper) in return for the effort I have put into solving a considerable number of problems involved?

Here is a sample of Part 1 as I read it:

Monsieur
J'ay recu l'honnour de la vostre. ie feray mon
possible, pour l'afaire, de m(onsieur) vostre neveu.
Je suis la parole pour vostre Recit de
La Caupain, on demande bon marché de ce quj
raproche, oncore de faire. le marché c´est que
madame de Camonne, veuve du lieutenant
Duperron de Montmorillon jette de la poussiere
dans les yeux de la personne, a quj j'en ay
parlé en lui disant qu'elle a de grosse de
sanctioner le Hipoteque sur Six
Livres. Je feray mon possible pour eviter
Cette difficulté et faire conclure la chose
Je vouz en donneray, aduire premier
Jay parlé a monsieur de la vigerie Filz de
feu M(onsieur) de Connquanier de vostre affaire
et il ma dict ne pouvoir rien faire
Sauve voir, une Coppie de vos, ....


List of stamps needed for my collection

S.G.188: 4d. Koala
189: 5d. Ram
190: 6d. Kooka
191: 9d. Platypus
192: 1/- Lyre Bird
208: 5 1/2d. Emu
225: 2 1/2d. W. Farrer
226: 2 1/2d. F. Von Muller
227: 2 1/2d. Scouts
231: 2 1/2d. H. Lawson
232: 2 1/2. U.P.U.
233: 2 1/2. Lord Forrest
238: 8 1/2d. Aborigine
239a: 2 1/2d. Stamp Anniv. pair
271: 3d. Tasmania Stamp Cent.
277: 3 1/2d. W.A. Stamp Cent.
284: 3 1/2d. Cobb & Co.
288: 3 1/2d. S.A. Stamp Cent.
316-21: set of 6 animals
352: 5d. Blue Mts. Crossing


Florian