18th CENTURY MAIL FORWARDING AT STRASBOURG

Although Strasbourg was annexed by Louis XIV of France in 1681 and defences built against the Germans, it kept many of its commercial links with other towns of the Holy Roman Empire. However, the new régime brought a break in postal connections across the Rhine. Merchants were obliged to use trade travellers to carry mail themselves to Strasbourg, where a commercial forwarder would arrange the letter to be sent on through the French mail system, for a fee or as a favour. Shown here is a letter of 1730 from Frankfurt, carried privately to Strasbourg, where the forwarder Jean Jacques de Beyer arranged for it to be mailed through the French post ("STRAS" straightline cancel of Strasbourg) to its final destination in Nancy.