Musician Jean Baptiste de Crous’ "rectangle inside" locked letter, France (1698)(UH0141)

Modelled after letter DB-11, the Brienne Collection, Sound & Vision, with permission. Model found in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries (MIT), Unlocking History Research Group archive, MC 0760. This letter, from bassist Jean Baptiste de Crous, gives valuable insight into the professional networks of musicians at the time. Writing from Tours, where he was engaged with a theater troupe, De Crous contacts an old acquaintance in The Hague. The two used to play together in the orchestra of the Duke of Courland. When the duke died, they parted ways. The company in Tours is terrible, writes De Crous, so he is looking for other opportunities. The postscript is especially revealing: De Crous addresses another former colleague now in The Hague, wondering where their good times have gone and wishing that they could once again have such a generous master. After Jean Baptiste de Crous wrote his letter, he roll-folded the first leaf of the bifolium towards the gutter fold in three equal parts, creating a "rectangle inside" independent crease pattern. The two leaves were then folded together in the following sequence: gatefold, roll fold, corner folds. The final corner folds created a trapezoid-shaped closure flap. The closure flap was secured to the letterpacket with red sealing wax, creating an exposed seal. In 1926, a seventeenth-century trunk of letters was given to the Museum voor Communicatie – now Sound & Vision – in The Hague, which was then, as now, the centre of government, politics, and trade in The Netherlands. The trunk belonged to two of the most active postmasters of the day, Simon de Brienne and Marie Germain, a couple at the heart of European communication networks. The chest contains an extraordinary archive: 2600 "locked" letters sent from all over Europe to this axis of communication, none of which were ever delivered. In the seventeenth century, the recipient also paid postal and delivery charges. But if the addressee was deceased, absent, or uninterested, no fees could be collected. Postmasters usually destroyed such “dead letters," but the Briennes preserved them, hoping that someone would retrieve the letters – and pay the postage. Hence the nickname for the trunk: “the piggy bank” (“spaarpotje” in Dutch). The trunk freezes a moment in history, allowing us to glimpse the early modern world as it went about its daily business. The letters are uncensored, unedited, and 600 of them even remain unopened. The archive itself has remained virtually untouched by historians. Our international and interdisciplinary team of researchers is undertaking a process of preservation, digitization, transcription, editing, and identification of letterlocking categories and formats that will reveal its secrets for the first time – even, we hope, those of the unopened letters. The Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered research team comprises Rebekah Ahrendt, Nadine Akkerman, Jana Dambrogio, David van der Linden, and Daniel Starza Smith. Thanks to Koos Havelaar, Ruben Verwaal, and the Unlocking History team. Produced by MIT Video Production. Directed by Jana Dambrogio. Special thanks to MIT Video Production staff, Ayako Letizia, Emily Hishta Cohen, Daniel Starza Smith, and the late Simone Felton. Funded by the Seaver Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries in support of our project “Unlocking History.” Citation information: Authors: Jana Dambrogio, Rebekah Ahrendt, and the Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered and Unlocking History Research Groups. Title: "Musician Jean Baptiste de Crous’ ‘rectangle inside’ locked letter, France (1698)," Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0141/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 141. Date filmed: November 2017. Duration: 3:42. Date posted: November 2017. Video URL: [Use URL below]. Date accessed: [Date]. Copyright 2017–present. Jana Dambrogio, the Unlocking History Research Group, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). All rights reserved. The following copyrighted material is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.... Contact the MIT Technology Licensing Office for any other licensing inquiries. To find out more about letterlocking and the Brienne Collection, visit http://letterlocking.org and follow us on social media @letterlocking. YouTube URL: http://bit.ly/briennedb11