The Schönbrunn Incident File — Supplementary Record (1777) - ENGLISH

ARCHIVAL EDITION · CONFIDENTIAL

The Schönbrunn Incident File — Supplementary Record

Filed 1777 · Written in an uncustomary hand · English

This is the other record.

Filed in 1777 alongside the official court report, this document baffled the Schönbrunn clerks almost immediately.

Its language does not match eighteenth-century usage.

Its tone does not respect hierarchy.

And its explanations are, at best, inconvenient.

Contemporary archivists noted that it appeared to be written in the manner of the Children involved in the affair, and could only be partially understood by those who spent time in their company.

Which raised an awkward question:

How does one archive a document one does not fully understand?

What you’ll find

• A parallel account of the same incident
• A voice that refuses to behave like a proper record
• Hints of time behaving badly
• Children who know more than they should

Neither this document nor the court record explains the full story.

Read alone, each is unsettling.

Read together, they suggest that Schönbrunn briefly failed to stay in its century.