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JOSEFINE SOLIMAN’S FIRST LETTER TO FRANCIS I, EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA

It is with a profound sense of sorrow and of shame that I come to Your Majesty, though also in the hopes that there has somehow been some sort of terrible mistake. Angel Soliman, my father, that unflinchingly faithful servant to Your Majesty’s uncle, Emperor Joseph (that vastly magnanimous lord to us all), has since his death (may he rest in peace) become victim to a truly reprehensible iniquity that must now be put to rights.

Your Majesty knows well the story of my father’s life, and I am also aware that Your Majesty knew my father personally, too, and esteemed him for his long-standing devotion and work, particularly as a faithful servant and chess master, and, like Your Majesty’s uncle, Emperor Joseph (may he rest in peace), and like many others, you once consistently treated him with distinction and respect. He had many wonderful friends who appreciated his qualities of mind and spirit, his great sense of humour and kindness of heart. He was in close contact for many years with Herr Mozart, from whom Your Majesty’s uncle was so gracious as to commission an opera. He also joined the diplomatic ranks and was widely famed on account of his prudence, his foresight, and his wisdom.

I shall now permit myself a brief harkening back to my father’s history, thereby to restore his person to Your Majesty’s gracious memory. What makes us most human is the possession of a unique and irreproducible story, that we take place over time and leave behind our traces. And yet, even if we did absolutely nothing for others – not for our ruler nor for our state – we would still have the right to be buried with dignity, for burial is merely the act of returning to our Creator his creation, the human body.

My father was born around 1720 in northern Africa, though the early years of his life are shrouded in mystery. He often commented that he could not remember clearly the period of his earliest childhood. His memory reached just back to the time when as a young child he was sold into slavery. With horror he would tell us what he did remember: the long sea voyage in the dark hold of some ship or other, scenes taken straight out of Dante’s inferno that had played out before the eyes of that small child following his separation from his mother and his other close blood relatives. His parents most likely ended up in the New World, while he was passed around as a sort of black pet, like a Maltese puppy or a Siamese cat. Why did he speak of it so rarely? Ought he not have done the opposite and spoken up about it all the time once he had obtained his position? I believe that his silence was brought about by a terrible conviction, a conviction he may himself have been unaware of: the faster painful events are erased from memory, the faster they will lose their power over us. They will cease to haunt us. The world will become better. As long as people don’t find out how awful and abominable man can be to fellow man, their innocence will be left intact. What happened to my father’s body after his death, however, is a testament to the wrongheadedness of that conviction.

After a seemingly endless series of trials, tribulations, and tragedies, my father was bought out of slavery on Corsica by the Prince of Lichtenstein’s kind-hearted wife and presented at court. This was how he wound up in Vienna, where Her Majesty the Princess developed a great affection for the child, and perhaps even, if I may, love. Thanks to her he was raised and educated in a meticulous manner. That education seems to have replaced in his memory his distant exotic origins. As his only daughter, I never heard him speak about his roots. Never even did I see him seem nostalgic. His heart was always fully in the service of Your Majesty’s uncle.

He became known, of course, as a distinguished politician, an intelligent envoy, and an endearing man. He was always surrounded by friends. He was loved and respected. He also enjoyed one special privilege: the friendship of Emperor Joseph, known as the Second – Your Majesty’s uncle, who entrusted to my father on a number of occasions missions requiring tremendous intelligence.

In 1768 he married my mother Magdalena Christiani, the widow of a Dutch general, with whom he lived in domestic bliss for fourteen years, until her death in 1782. I am the sole fruit of that union. After many years of useful contributions, he undertook the decision to retire from the service of the Prince of Lichtenstein, his benefactor, though he always maintained his relationship with the court and always continued to serve the Emperor.

I know how much my father owed to human kindness, and to the human tendency to help. Many people whose stories began as unhappily as my father’s did were simply lost, dissolving into the chaos of the world. Few black-skinned slave children had the opportunity to attain as high and important a position as my father. But this is precisely the reason why his case is so significant – it shows that as beings created by the hand of God, we are all His children, and we are brothers and sisters to one another.

A number of my dear departed father’s friends have already written to Your Majesty regarding this matter. I join them here in requesting that Your Majesty release my father’s body and allow him to have the Christian burial he deserves.

Hopefully,

Josefine Soliman von Feuchtersleben