Paris City Post
The philatelist understands the Paris City Post Office to be a local government post service in Paris , which was first set up under Jean-Jacques Renouard in 1653. This was done with royal approval from King Louis XIV.
Renouard introduced a uniform postage of 1 sou . The leaseholder of the Paris City Post Office promised that the letters sent within Paris would be delivered on the same day. For the first time in postal history, he even had mailboxes set up on public roads in a regular postal service. However, these only had a practical sense if there was an option to prepay the postage. He was finally able to solve this problem thanks to the Duchesse de Longueville , who suggested issuing strips of paper that were to be attached to the letter to be sent. The paper had to be "attached to, or wrapped around, or tucked into the letter or otherwise affixed so that the officer can see and easily remove it," as the regulation stated. Since no adhesive surface was provided, this had to be done with a clip or thread .
The billets de port payé , as they were baptized by Renouard, were first issued on August 8, 1653. Today they are considered to be the earliest forerunners of the postage stamp . However, no copy has survived to this day. A six-line inscription was printed on the billets de port payé, which the sender had to add in part:
Pour Monsieur…
demeurant en la rue…
(par Billet de Post Payé)
PARIS
JOUR de…
L'an mil six cent cinquante…
in German translation:
To Mr ...
residing in the street ...
(through prepaid postage)
PARIS
on the DAY ...
in the year sixteen hundred ...
Completing these forerunners of postage stamps was considered to be devaluing them . The billets de port payé were available in numerous places in Paris at the price of 1 sou.
Although the committed Renouard's system could have served as a model for the pan-European postal system, it was discontinued after a few years for economic reasons. It was imitated in a similar form by the London Penny Post from 1680 .
In 1671, the Pajot & Rouillé families received a license from King Louis XIV to exercise their post. Louis Rouille and Leon 1er Pajot bought the city palace of Nicolas de Neufville for this purpose , duc de Villeroy 34 rue des Bourdonnais in what is now the First Arrondissement. The postal service flourished so that in 1690 an adjoining building with an entrance from 9 rue des Dechargeurs was built. There was a so-called "Cabinet Noir" Black Cabinet in which certain letters were temporarily withdrawn from circulation in order to spy on the contents and, if interested, forward them to the royal family. The family ran the postal service for 3 generations until it fell into the disgrace of King Louis XV in 1738 , presumably because the Cardinal de Fleury was annoyed about the wealth the Rouille & Leon's had acquired. Louis Leon Pajot, "Intendant General des Postes" in the third and last generation bequeathed extensive collections of measuring instruments, such as the Chronomètre de Louilié, to the Académie des sciences . The former post office buildings still exist today and are used as private apartments and as exhibition space for the Cremerie de Paris .
The inner courtyard can be visited.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The mail of the Pajot & Rouille families ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Obituary for Louis Leon Pajot - Comte de Onsenbray by the Academie des Sciences ( Memento of the original of December 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 667 kB)
