Jean-Paul provides another valuable translation which may explain the reason for the legal procedings and subsequent departure from Luxembourg of Charles and family. It is clear that Charles has had a spectacular falling out with his new management. It appears the legal proceding may have been part of this process.
Jean Paul writes:
Apart from two little things that I wasn’t able to decypher (marked by … ), I have finished the translation of the document that Elodee had sent under the name “OLM 15 Oct 1894.jpg” . It contains drafts for 3 letters from Charles.
The first one (from 15th Oct. 1894) is addressed to Victor CLÉMENT, merchant in Luxembourg. The header of this draft is in French, with 3 words in English (!?)
It begins with a pun : He writes (in French) ‘A mon juge clément’ (‘To my clement judge’). This sarcastic sentence is for sure an allusion to the man’s family name !
The following letter itself is in German.
The second letter (from 20th Oct.), in French, is for Mr. Emile MOUSEL (the owner of a famous Luxembourgish brewery).
The 3rd letter (from 21st Oct.), again in French, is addressed to the doctor Jean-Pierre HERRIGES. It shows that Charles must have been a well-read man. He develops his anger on an aphorism from a French philosopher (I didn’t know her until this translation, so I’ve learned something during the job 🙂 . The lots of strikethroughs and modiications in his text show that it was important for Charles to express his thoughts as precisely as possible.
The 3 recipients of the letters were … the mayor of the City of Luxembourg (Mr MOUSEL) and his 2 deputies ! They had been appointed to that functions on 24th of February 1894, after the former mayor Alexis Brasseur and one of his deputies had asked to retire from their functions.
Charles must have had a big quarrel with his new bosses. There was money involved (in the 1st letter, he mentions 8000 francs of Octroi fees), but from the content, it is not clearly visible what exactly had happened. The only evident thing is that there was a disagreement that made him lose (or quit ?) his job …
As usual, I tried to keep the original structure of the document as close as possible, which was not the simplest thing, with all those corrections in the text …