I have always been fascinated by mail and posts. Before internet took off, I used tp write many paper letters to my parents and friends, including on special super light paper for faster “air mails”. I wrote a post about a letter from old Shanghai French municipality a few years ago, this time I got a letter from the Shanghai French Consulate.
This envelop sender was the “Consulat Général de France à Changhai”, i.e. Shanghai French Consulate located on the French Bund, as explained in post “Shanghai former French Consulate“. This kind of document is very rare nowadays. It was sent to France, “Via Sibérie”, meaning it was carried by train to Beijing, then on the Transmanchurian railway to Moscow through Dalian and then further on to Paris.
The envelop postmark shows 22-07-38 / 19. I assume that it’s 22nd July 1938, at 19:00. Just like on the 1936 letter from the French municipality, Shanghai is written both in English and Chinese (from right to left as was the fashion of the time), although a different stamp was used. It was stamped with five 5 dollars stamps, this being a lighter letter than the French municipality letter that required two 25 stamps and was probably heavier. Currency was the Chinese Dollars. Although it’s pretty difficult to convert to today’s money, it was probably not cheap.
The peculiar address also attracted by attention as it indicates “Adomenil, par Lunéville”. It turns out that Adomenil is a castle, located in the area of Lunéville, a small town in North-East France. The castle was the property of the “de Ravinel” family, a French nobel family starting from the middle of the 15th century. It has now been turned into a luxury hotel.
One of the daughter of Baron Charles de Ravinel (1839-1905) was Marie-Françoise de Ravinel (1904-1988). She is probably Mlle M. F. de Ravinel, to whom this letter was sent. In 1936, she was 32 years old and was probably unmarried as being named “Mademoiselle”, the then title for unmarried woman in France. From what I could find, she never got married. So far I did not find a link between her and old Shanghai. My guess is that she was a nun at some point, in one of numerous catholic institutions that were based in the Shanghai French concession.
For more research about mails sent from Shanghai French Concession authorities, please see post “Shanghai French Municipality letter“.