The Life of a Prince in Times of Uproar

Hieronymus Graf Colloredo (1732-1812) was Salzburg`s Prince Archbishop between 1772 and 1803. He corresponded with his brother Gundaker Collordo. A total o f 655 letters have been preserved, most of them from the years 1790 to 1800. As was customary at the time, the brothers wrote their letters in French. In the present edition, the letters are historically and critically processed. In the preliminary note to the edition, Hieronymus Graf Colloredo and his brother are briefly introduced. The edition part follows this. In addition to the transcription of the French letters, there are German summaries of the letters. In the footnotes, readers receive biographical sketches of the named people and other explanations. Finally, in the last part, there is a list of indices and registers. The letters can be used for various historical questions, mainly because the brothers corresponded on political issues as well as family matters. Since they lived in a time of war and radical social upheaval at the end of the 18th century, they also wrote about their feelings, fears and worries about the future. Due to the enormous variety of topics of the Colloredo correspondence, its duration and density of transmission, the correspondence represents a crucial contemporary historical source.