Autograph letter signed ("C. de Lipona").
4to. 1½ pp. on bifolium with integral address panel. Watermark: angel holding a scroll with initials "GR".
$887.00
Addressed to the steward of her estate Frohsdorf in Lower Austria, Boruzki, with a series of tasks and the expression of her satisfaction with Boruzki's efforts towards the agricultural and financial care of the estate. Boruzki should accommodate the family of Count Odelga fittingly in Frohsdorf, and carry out Bonaparte's instructions on the manorial distillery and its distiller Wais, animal sales, the mine, and recently arrived documents from Venice. She also expresses her thanks to the harvesters and congratulations on the birth of Boruzki's son: "Je viens de recevoir, Monsieur le Wervalter, votre lettre du 15 et je suis enchantée des détails que vous me donnez sur ma Seigneurie de Frohsdorf: j'espère que la suite de vos opérations agricoles répondra au commencement, et que la récolte répondra à vos soins [...] Assurez les Employés de ma réconnaissence pour le zèle qu'ils ont déployé à la rentrée des récoltes [...]".
Caroline bought Frohsdorf Castle in 1817 and lived there as "Comtesse de Lipona" with her second husband, General Macdonald, during the next five years of the exile imposed on her by the provisions of the Congress of Vienna. In Frohsdorf she was surrounded by only a few people; her sister Pauline and her brother Jérôme had become estranged: on 3 March 1818 Jérôme wrote to Elisa Bonaparte, "Je n'espère rien de Caroline, ils sont anti-français et anti-famille [...]" ("I hope for nothing from Caroline, they are anti-French and anti-family", Archives nationales AP 15).
The tears caused by letter opening have been expertly restored. There is a longer marginal tear along the fold, a small paper break resulting from ink corrosion, and a collector's note in pencil,