The
Ranums'
Panat Times
Volume 1, redone Dec. 2014
The Fronde Newsletters
You can bypass this discussion of editorial principles and access the newsletters immediately, year by year:
Consult other years:
Fronde 1648
Fronde 1649
Fronde 1650
Fronde 1651
Fronde 1652
Fronde 1653
Note: BNF, ms. fr. 25025 contains letters for 1648-1651. BNF, Ms. fr. 25026 contains letters for 1652-1653
Editorial principles
The original typescript of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, mss. fr. 25025-25026, was completed by the late 1970s, on an old manual typewriter!
At that time, I made a card file of the "cast of characters," and I carefully checked the typescript with the microfilm. I also went through all seven boxes of typescript, modernizing the capitalization, filling out abbreviated words, adding minimal punctuation and apostrophes, and "homogenizing" the abbreviations I had decided to retain. (For example, Sa Majesté, S.M., and Sa M. were homogenized to "Sa M."; Mr le Prince, M. le Prince, and Monsieur le Prince became "M. le Prince"; and Son Altesse Royale, Son A.R. and S.A.R. became "S.A.R.") I am not sure that I would do things the same today.
In this re-formatting, I did not use superscripts in abbreviations. It would simply take too long! Thus you will see "Mr le Prince" and must imagine that the original reads "Mr le Prince." When they see "Ste" they must imagine that "Sainte" is represented in abbreviation: "Ste." Idem for numbers: "1o" should be "1o" and "30e" was actually be written "30e." And so forth.
A few words are capitalized, for they denote major characters in the Fronde: "Le Roy," "La Reyne," "la Cour" (that is, the royal court, as distinguished from "la cour," the Parlement), "la Ville" (when the word denotes the city fathers).
An explanation of the square brackets: Confusions between "ce" and
"se," "qui" and "qu'il," and so forth, that suggest dictation, have been
retained. The version in the manuscript is followed by the proposed
reading in square brackets. Corrected spellings of a few personal or
place names are provided in brackets. There are also a certain number of
bracketed words: the tight binding made it impossible to read these
words, which had to be deduced on the basis of context and initial
letter(s).
Since 1980, the boxes have been stacked in a closet,
because the sheer bulk of the transcription made publication in book
form unlikely. Now, twenty-five years later, I am retyping the abandoned
typescript of the 1970s. Since the text has no literary merit, I see no
point in reworking the editorial changes I made to the transcription so
many years ago.
The newsletters
Newsletters are grouped by month. Each letter is framed by horizontal lines, at the start and at the end. The beginning of each new folio is shown by a small number within slashes, e.g: /35v/. From 1648-December 1651, these numbers indicate the folios in ms. fr. 25015; then, in January 1651 (and ms. fr. 25026) the folio numbers once again go back to /1/.
Since the text has no literary merit, I see no point in reworking the entire transcription to conform to the latest scholarly ideal. Instead, I offer scholars a clean version of the typescript I made back in the 1970s.
NOTE: The news dispatched from the provinces can lag one or two weeks behind the main newsletter. You might therefore want to look at the letters for the next month too, or even for the next two months.
Also: remember that there is a gap in the newsletters between late January and April 1649 owing to the blockade of Paris. In addition, letters are very scarce for January and February 1650, although the author clearly was not following the Court to Normandy.
December 1648
Fronde
1649
Fronde
1650
Fronde
1651
Fronde
1652
Fronde
1653
For more on these newsletters:
"Monsieur X " Handwriting Opening page about the newsletters