OF POST-PAID ENVELOPES.

Colonist, Issue 19, 25 December 1857, Page 4

OF POST-PAID ENVELOPES.

M. Piron tells us that the idea of a postpaid envelope originated early'in the reign of Louis XIV., with M. de Valeyer; who in 1653, established (with Royal approbation) $, private penny-post, placing boxes at the corners of the streets for the reception of letters wrapped up in envelopes, which were to be bought at offices established for that purpose. M. de Velayer had also caused to be printed certain forms of billets, or notes, applicable to the ordinary business among the inhabitants of great towns, with blanks, which were to be filled up by the pen with such special matter as might complete the writer's object. One of these billets has been preserved to our times by a pleasant misapplication of it. Pelisson (Mdme. de Sevigne's friend, and the object of the bon mot that "he abused the privilege which men have of being ugly") was amused at this kind of skeleton correspondence; and under the affected name oLPisandre (according to the pedantic fashion of the day), he filled up and addressed one of these forms to the celebrated Mademoiselle de Scuderi, in her pseudonyme of Sappho. This strange Mllet-doux has happened, from the celebrity of the parties to be preserved, and and it is still extant; one of the oldest, we presume, of penny-post letters, and a currious example, of a envelope;, a new proof of the adage, that " there is nothing new under the sun."