More than 100 letters sent to French sailors by their fiancees, wives, parents and siblings but never delivered have been opened and studied for the first time since they were written in 1757 and 1758.
Renaud Morieux, professor at the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge and Pembroke College, in the United Kingdom, has revealed these letters in an article published this Tuesday in the magazine Annales. History, Social Sciences. This researcher spent months decoding a total of 104 letters written with complicated spelling, without punctuation or capitalization, and filling every inch of the expensive paper on which they appear.
The messages offer insight into the loves, lives, and family feuds of everyone from elderly peasants to the wives of wealthy officers. “These correspondences are part of the universal human experience, they are not linked only to France or the 18th century,” commented Morieux. The letters offer valuable new evidence about French women and workers, as well as different forms of literacy.
The messages were seized by the British Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War, taken to the Admiralty in London and never opened. The collection is now housed in the National Archives at Kew, UK.
“I could spend the night writing to you… I am your forever faithful wife. Good night my dear friend. It's midnight. I think it is time to rest,” wrote Marie Dubosc to her husband, Louis Chambrelan, first lieutenant of the Galatée, a French warship, in 1758.
Marie did not know where Louis was or if his ship had been captured by the British. The sailor never received the letter from her and the two never met again. The woman died the following year in Le Havre, France, almost certainly before her husband was freed, and he returned safely to France in 1761.
Another of the hundred examples is the story of Ane Le Cerf, who wrote desperately to her husband Jean Topsent, a Galatée non-commissioned officer: “I can't wait to possess you.” "Maybe it meant 'hug', but it could also have been 'making love to you,'" Morieux interprets. Le Cerf signed the letter as “your obedient wife Nanette,” an affectionate nickname. Imprisoned somewhere in England, Topsent would never receive the love letter from his fiancée.
Morieux notes that he asked for the box with the epistles “out of curiosity.” “There were three piles of letters held together by a ribbon. The letters were very small and sealed, so I asked the archivist if they could be opened and he did. I realized that he was the first person to read these very personal messages since they were written. His intended recipients did not have that opportunity. It was very emotional,” he emphasizes.
The historian compares the everyday life with which these elements were sent and compares it with today. "These (the letters) reveal how we all face life's major challenges. When we are separated from our loved ones by events beyond our control, such as the pandemic or wars, we have to figure out how to stay in touch, how to reassure, "taking care of people and keeping the passion alive. Today we have Zoom and WhatsApp. In the 18th century, people only had letters, but what they wrote is very familiar to me."
During the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), France commanded some of the best ships in the world, but lacked experienced sailors. Britain took advantage of this by imprisoning as many French sailors as it could during the war. In 1758, a total of 19,632 French sailors were detained in Great Britain, of the 64,373 who were imprisoned on British soil during the entire Seven Years' War.
Some of these men died from disease and malnutrition, but many others were freed. Meanwhile, their families waited and repeatedly tried to contact them and exchange news. "It's hard to tell someone what you really think of them when people are looking down on you. There was much less division between the intimate and the collective," says Morieux.
In the 18th century, sending letters from France to a ship, a constantly moving target, was incredibly difficult and unreliable. Sometimes people would send multiple copies to different ports in the hope of reaching a sailor. Relatives also asked the crewmates' families to insert messages for their loved ones in their letters.
Morieux found ample evidence of these strategies in Galatée's letters, which, like so many others, never reached their intended recipients. The French ship was traveling from Bordeaux to Quebec when she was captured in 1758 by the British ship Essex and sent to Portsmouth. The crew was imprisoned and the ship was sold.
The French postal administration had attempted to deliver the letters to the ship, sending them to various ports in France, but they always arrived too late. When they learned that the ship had been captured, they sent the letters to England, where they were delivered to the Admiralty in London.
"It's agonizing how close they came," said Morieux, who believes officials opened and read two letters to see if they had any military value, but decided they only contained "family stuff," gave up and put them away.
Morieux identified all the members of the 181-member crew that made up the Galatée's company, from simple sailors to carpenters to senior officers. The letters were addressed to a quarter of them. This professor conducted genealogical research on these men and their correspondents to learn more about their lives and what the letters alone revealed.
The letters convey both romantic love and, more often, familial love, but they also offer a rare insight into family tensions and disputes in times of war and prolonged absence. Some of the most notable were sent to the young sailor Nicolas Quesnel, from Normandy. On January 27, 1758, her 61-year-old mother Marguerite, who was almost certainly illiterate, sent a message written by an unknown scribe to complain about the lack of affection she had for him.
“On the first day of the year (that is, January 1) you wrote to your fiancée (…). I think more about you than you think about me (…). In any case, I wish you a happy new year full of blessings from the Lord. I think I'm on the verge of death, I've been sick for three weeks. Congratulate Varin (a shipmate), only his wife tells me the news,” the message says.
A few weeks later, Nicolas's fiancée, Marianne, wrote to him asking him to write to his mother to prove that he was a good son and stop putting her in an uncomfortable situation. It seems that Marguerite had blamed Marianne for Nicolas' silence. Marianne wrote: “The dark cloud has gone, a letter your mother has received from you brightens the atmosphere.” But on March 7, 1758, Marguerite wrote to Nicholas again to complain: “In your letters you never mention your father. This hurts me a lot. The next time you write to me, don't forget your father."
Morieux discovered that this man was actually Nicolas's stepfather. His biological father had died and his mother remarried. "Here is a son who clearly does not like or recognize this man as his father," says the researcher, who adds: "These are complex family tensions, but very familiar."
Nicolas Quesnel survived his imprisonment in England and, Morieux discovered, joined the crew of a transatlantic slave trading ship in the 1760s.
More than half (59%) of the letters were signed by women and offer valuable insights into female literacy, social media and wartime experiences. "These letters destroy the outdated notion that war is about men," says Morieux, before emphasizing: "While their men were away, women ran the household economy and made crucial economic and political decisions."
Back then, the French Navy manned its warships by forcing most of the men who lived near the coast to serve for a year every triennium or quadrennium. This system was unpopular among those affected by it and many French sailors fled once they reached port or requested to be released due to injuries.
The sister of Nicolas Godefroy, a trainee pilot, wrote: “What would bring me the most pain is for you to go to the islands.” She was referring to the Caribbean, where thousands of European sailors died from disease. However, Godefroy's sister and mother refused to request his release from the navy. They feared that the proposed strategy could backfire and force him to remain at sea “even longer.”
On the other hand, Morieux's study reveals a more inclusive definition of literacy. “You can participate in a writing culture without knowing how to write or read. Most people who sent these letters told a scribe what they wanted to say and relied on others to read their letters aloud. He was someone they knew who knew how to write, not a professional. Keeping in touch was a community effort,” she concludes.
