Jean-Jacques Renouard, seigneur de Villayer (24 June 1607,

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

– 5 March 1691,

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) was a member of the

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Conseil d'État In France, the (; Council of State) is a governmental body that acts both as legal adviser to the executive branch and as the supreme court for administrative justice, which is one of the two branches of the French judiciary system. Establ ...

'', which had been delegated special legal authorities by the absolutist reigning King

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. In 1653 as the tenant of the Paris City Post, Renouard de Villayer ordered

post box A post box (British English; also written postbox; also known as pillar box), also known as a collection box, mailbox, letter box or drop box (American English), is a physical box into which members of the public can deposit outgoing mail intend ...

es to be set up at different places in Paris. Letters, prepaid with a uniform postage of 1

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, could be put in these boxes and were then delivered inside of the city within the same day. The receipts (''billet de port payé''), that were issued for this purpose and had to be attached to the letters as postage, are considered to be early precursors of the

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the f ...

. There are no examples still existing today. The so-called ''Petite Poste'' was an economic failure, but was later successfully imitated in other

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an cities (for example by the ''London Penny Post'' as of 1680). In 1659, Renouard de Villayer became a member of the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

, succeeding

Abel Servien Abel Servien, marquis de Sablé et de Boisdauphin and Comte de La Roche des Aubiers (1 November 159317 February 1659) was a French diplomat who served Cardinal Mazarin and signed for the French the Treaty of Westphalia. He was an early member of th ...

. In 1944, the family coat of arms of Renouard de Villayer was depicted on a commemorative stamp by La Poste, the French post office, on the

Day of the Postage Stamp A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours (86,400 seconds). As a day passes at a given location it experiences morning, afternoon, evening, and night. This daily cycle driv ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Renouard, Jean-Jacques 1607 births 1691 deaths People from the Province of Brittany Politicians from Nantes Members of the Académie Française Postal pioneers