After 256 years, over 100 love letters addressed to 18th-century French sailors were finally found and analyzed by a professor of history at Cambridge University, Renard Moreuix.
The letters, containing poignant messages from the wives, parents, and siblings of the sailors, were all seized by the Royal Navy of Britain during the Seven Years' War and had been brought to the Admiralty in London, where they had never been opened since the recent discovery.
According to Morieux, the letters were moved once more to the National Archives at Kew, London, and he only found them by chance while doing archival research for his paper on the French prisoners of England.
"I only ordered the box out of curiosity. There were three piles of letters held together by ribbon. The letters were very small and were sealed so I asked the archivist if they could be opened and he did," Morieux said.
After discovering the letters, Moreuix spent months deciphering them but had trouble due to the hard-to-understand grammar of another era. Then and there, Moreuix realized that he was the first person to read the intimate letters after they were written centuries prior, which he found to be "very emotional." Moreuix eventually published his findings in the journal "Annales Histoire Sciences Sociales."
The Pont de la Tournelle over the River Seine in Paris, with the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris behind it, 1780. Also pictured are the Ile Saint-Louis, the Isle Louvier and the Quai St Bernard. Drawn by la Combe and engraved by Niquet.
Lost French Love Letters
In one of the letters Marie Dubosc wrote in 1758 to her husband, Louis Chambrelan, a first Lieutenant to a French warship called "The Galatée."
"I could spend the night writing to you .. I am your forever faithful wife. Good night, my dear friend. It is midnight. I think it is time for me to rest," Dubosc penned.
However, it was ascertained that Dubosc and Chambrelan have never met and conversed with each other again, through letters or in person, because Dubosc never learned that the British captured her husband. Tragically, Dubosc died a year after she sent the letter.
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Insights From Human Connection
The then-lost letters give a valuable and intimate glimpse into the loves, lives, and family feuds in French society. For Moreuix, there's also a mountain of precious historical insights found.
One such insight is about the relevance of women during a season of strife, especially during the 18th century Seven Year's War. Interestingly, over half of the entire hundred letters were signed by women, which indicated these women's level of literacy, social networks, and collective experiences during the war.
"These letters shatter the old-fashioned notion that war is all about men. While their men were gone, women ran the household economy and took crucial economic and political decisions," Morieux noted.
That said, these letters are not only relevant to the people then, but they also provide added appreciation to how we communicate now. These letters are about universal human experiences that transcend time and culture.
"Today we have Zoom and WhatsApp. In the eighteenth century, people only had letters but what they wrote about feels very familiar," Morieux noted.
