PRECIOUS TRAVEL DIARY FROM VOLHYNIA TO SILESIA - Lot 223

Lot 223
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PRECIOUS TRAVEL DIARY FROM VOLHYNIA TO SILESIA - Lot 223
PRECIOUS TRAVEL DIARY FROM VOLHYNIA TO SILESIA (from the then Russian Ukraine to today's Czech Republic) ENGHIEN (Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon, Duc d'). Autograph manuscript. July-August 1798. 2 pp. large folio. The last descendant of the House of Condé, kidnapped and executed by order of Napoleon I, the Duc d'Enghien (1772-1804) was a prince of the blood, godson of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, and distinguished himself during emigration in all the campaigns of his grandfather Prince Condé's army against the revolutionary troops. He followed this army when it was sold out by the Tsar and barracked from 1798 to 1801 in Volhynia, at Doubno near Loutsk (present-day Ukraine). Carelessly relocated to Germany near the French border, when Napoleon Bonaparte feared royalist plots, he was kidnapped by a French commando in March 1804 and, after a show trial, executed in the moat of the Château de Vincennes. His royal origins, his bravery, his sensitive character and the fatality of a destiny cut short in his youth made him a romantic figure before his time. Rare diary of a journey through Eastern Europe, from Russian Volhynia to the Austrian territories of Moravia, Galicia and Silesia, i.e., on today's map of Europe, from the Ukraine via Poland to the Czech Republic. Here are the opening lines: "July. 2. Left Lutzc on July 2 to sleep in Rojitché. Walked through gardens and wheat fields, returned by the river. A thuilerie. - 3. In Tortschin. Rain and mud, lodging at a Russian general's castle, Sarastro and Pinchiko lost. - 4. In Lokatché. Walking in the fields. Missed a moorhen, stayed in Mde de Wilga's house arranged for the d[uc] de Berry. Nice surroundings. - 5. At Wlodiemiers, storms, small house on marsh, gallery. - 6. Stay in Vlodiemiers, me hunting, big rain, I don't go in the evening. - 7. Passage of the Boog to Rubischoff in Gallicia. Me at castle, she opposite, big nayade, we go to see the place. Sleep in car after supper in courtyard. - 8. In Hérizofkusky. Bad hole in so-called castle. People in the same room. Afternoon hunt in requisition car. Supper in the courtyard, sleeping in the carriage. Garden full of rozes. - 9. In Zamosk, town. Large castle. Walked to a fruit garden. Suburb, singular cemetery, supper in garden on ramparts... August... 16. In Littau. Lovely surroundings. Love in the piss. At a shop on the second floor. Me at an iron merchant. Fishing in the place deffendu then walk in the wood to the couzins. - 17. Stay in Littau. Same hunt with Medor. Henry stays to look for him. Pretty meadows, pretty streams, purchases abrikots. - 18. Miglitz. Me in a corner of a little street, the P[rince]sse on the square, the knitted pentalon, sad walk in the plain. Sitting on the tiller of the car in the evening. Night stroll in the square. Billiards at P[rince]sse's house. 19. At Stribau." The Duc d'Enghien thus details his day-to-day travels: departing on July 2, 1798 from Loutsk in Volhynia (under Russian control since the third partition of Russia in 1795), he passed through Horodyshche, Lokachi, Tortchine, Volodimir, then entered Galicia on July 7 (then Austrian territory since the first partition of Poland in 1772), and passed through Hrubieszów, Horyszów, Zamość, Szczebrzeszyn, Józefów, Tarnogród, Sieniawa, Przeworsk, Łańcut ("Landshut"), Rzeszów, Sędziszów, Dębica, Pilzno, Tarnów, Wojnicz, Brzesko, Bochnia, Gdów, Myślenice, Kalwaria, Wadowice, Andrychów, and Biała. From August 8, he then crossed a portion of Austrian Silesia, via Skotschau (today Skoczow in Poland), Teschen (today Cieszyn in Poland), and Friedek (today Frýdek in the Czech Republic), before entering Moravia (today in the Czech Republic) on August 12, passing through Neutitschein (today Nový Jičín), Leipnitz (today Lipnik), Olmütz (today Olomouc, 50 km from Austerlitz), Littau (Litovel), Müglitz (today Mohelnice), Triebau (today Moravská Třebová). With his mistress, Princess Charlotte de Rohan-Rochefort, mentioned several times in the manuscript. A descendant of the Dukes of Brittany through her father, Prince de Rochefort, and a descendant of King Charles V through her mother, Marie-Henriette d'Orléans-Rothelin, Charlotte de Rohan-Rochefort (1767-1841) enjoyed a brilliant youth, assisting her mother who ran a successful salon, and was saddened only by the disgrace of her beloved godfather, Cardinal de Rohan, Archbishop of Strasbourg, who became embroiled in the "Affair d'Orléans-Rothelin".
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