However, by the time I finished making a chic little envelope in which to present the cards, I found myself unwilling to part with even one. I still have all five, and am even more charmed by them than I was before. Four of the set are visiting cards, which could also be used for gift enclosures. The fifth is from a shop. Even if you don’t read French, the cards have tidbits to tell.
The Viscount and Viscountess de la Grandière’s card (above, lower right) is the heaviest, quite stiff, with discernibly raised engraving. I think Monsieur and Madame G. Clerfeuille’s card (below) is set in the same typeface, though with dramatically different ampersands. Note the wonderful superscripted abbreviations: V plus a tiny te for Viscount and V plus a tiny tesse for Viscountess, tucked into the final swash of the V; Mr for Monsieur and Mme for Madame. All with the same little hash-mark (“) under the superscripted letters.
Madame Clerfeuille, I think, penned the note, which continues for six lines on the back, extending condolences to someone and her daughter. She took the trouble to date the card Paris, May 6, 1934 —which I appreciate.
As for the Vicomte de Noüe (top, far right), who resided at 6, Square du Roule (223, Faubg St Honoré): His address sent me to my arrondissement guidebook, to verify exacty where in Paris’ 8th arrondissement the Square du Roule is. It’s a cul de sac, equidistant from the Arc de Triomphe and the Parc Monceau, and I definitely plan to go there on my next visit to Paris. As for the Vicomtesse: I think I would have liked her. Look how she wrote — in violet ink, yet — Vte & in front of the Vicomte’s title, which she tweaked into Vicomtesse by appending sse. I want to think the de Noües also had a couple’s card, but that the Vicomtesse (who, for purposes of this fantasy, is named Violette) had left them in her other reticule. By the way, googling Vicomte de Noüe produces 50,000 results (whereas the de la Grandières only summons a couple of hundred).
Monsieur and Madame Pierre Lubac’s card (middle card at top), like the de Noües’ is set in Engraver’s Roman, in large and small caps. I love Madame’s big, jaggy penmanship, but reproach her for not dating the card.
Last, but not at all least, is the card from Augustin Bertrand Libraire, a bookshop formerly at 9, Place A. Laissac in Montpellier. Googling the address yields close to 10,000 results, of which the first handful would indicate that the shop has become either the Cotton Pub or the Robin Hood Pub. As for Alexandre Laissac the person (as differentiated from the eponymous Place), he was the mayor of Montpellier in the 1880s. And the card must have accompanied a gift (perhaps a book?) from the shop to Monsieur and Madame Janel, expressing congratulations and sincere wishes for the health and happiness of adorable little Pierre.
I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten more papery pleasure from a $5 purchase! Dare I speculate that one of my AOK cards might find its way into a book or file or collection, from which it will be extracted and googled 75 years from now? Wouldn’t that be perf!
divine!