Over 100 letters that were sent to French sailors—more than 265 years ago—by fiancées, wives, parents, and siblings, but never delivered, have been opened for the first time.
Their words offer “extremely rare” insight into love, disruption, and family quarrels in wartime. The perspective of these letters ranges from elderly peasants to wealthy officer’s wives.
During this period, France had some of the world’s finest warships but very few experienced sailors, a situation that Britain exploited by imprisoning as many French naval men as possible.
And then nicking their post.
Two and a half centuries later, a University of Cambridge historian, Professor Renaud Morieux, investigated a box of letters that were written when Britain was ruled by King George II, and the nation was battling France in the Seven Years’ War. The professor made the “emotional” discovery that all but two of the letters were unopened.
He spent two months decoding terrible spelling, messy handwriting, and tightly packed words.
In 1758, Marie Dubosc wrote to her husband, the first Lieutenant of the French warship 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.”
She was unaware the British had captured the Galatée, sending it to Portsmouth and imprisoning the crew, including her husband, Lieutenant Louis Chambrelan.
However, the high-ranking seaman did not receive his wife’s letter, and the pair never met again; Ms. Dubosc died the following year in Le Havre.
Her death would “almost certainly” have been before Mr. Chambrelan was released, according to researchers. In 1761, Mr. Chambrelan remarried in France.
The letters also revealed the nature of family love, tensions, and quarrels during the war along with the impact of being apart for years.
Nicolas Quesnel, a young sailor from Normandy, received some of the most remarkable letters, the researchers said.
On Jan. 27, 1758, Mr. Quesnel’s 61-year-old mother, Marguerite, who was almost certainly illiterate, sent a letter via an unknown scribe.
She wrote: “On the first day of the year you have written to your fiancée. I think more about you than you about me.
In any case, I wish you a happy new year filled with blessings of the Lord,” she said. “I think I am for the tomb, I have been ill for three weeks. Give my compliments to Varin [a shipmate], it is only his wife who gives me your news.”
Days later, Mr. Quesnel’s fiancée, Marianne, sent a letter imploring him to write to his mother and stop putting her in a difficult position as his mother appeared to blame her for Mr. Quesnel’s silence.
“The black cloud has gone, a letter that your mother has received from you, lightens the atmosphere,” Mr. Quesnel’s fiancée wrote.
However, it seems the happiness was short-lived as his mother wrote again to him, complaining about how his letters never mention his father.
“This hurts me greatly,“ she said. ”Next time you write to me, please do not forget your father.”
Professor Renaud Morieux, from Cambridge University’s History Faculty, analyzed the letters and commented: “Here is a son who doesn’t like or acknowledge this man as his father.”
He added that during this era if your mother remarried, her new husband would automatically become your father.
“Without explicitly saying it, Marguerite is reminding her son to respect this by sharing news about “your father,” he said. “These are complex but very familiar family tensions.”
Mr. Quesnel had survived British prison and joined the crew of a transatlantic slave trade ship in the 1760s.
Women signed over half of the letters sent to the sailors, shedding light on female literacy, social networks, and experiences in wartime.
During the war, the French navy manned its warships by forcing most men living near the coast to serve for one year every three or four years.
This system was hugely unpopular, and many fled once in port or applied to be released with an injury.
The sister of Nicolas Godefroy, a trainee pilot, wrote: “What would bring me more pain is if you leave for the islands.”
She was referring to the Caribbean, where thousands of European sailors died from disease.
Despite their worries, Mr. Godefroy’s sister and mother both refused to apply for his release from the Navy. They feared that doing so would backfire and force him to stay at the sea “even longer.”
Professor Morieux spent months decoding 104 letters written with wild spelling, no punctuation or capital letters, and filling every inch of the expensive paper they appear on.
“I only ordered the box out of curiosity,“ he said. ”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.”
He soon realized that he was the first person to read through these very personal messages since they were written. However, he was saddened by the fact that their intended recipients didn’t get that chance.
“These letters are about universal human experiences, they’re not unique to France or the 18th century,” he said. “They reveal how we all cope with major life challenges.
“When we are separated from loved ones by events beyond our control, like the pandemic or wars, we have to work out how to stay in touch, how to reassure, care for people, and keep the passion alive.”
Unlike nowadays, people in the 18th century didn’t have WhatsApp or Zoom, they had to put down their feelings on paper. Still, what they wrote about seems familiar, as they depict how people deal with challenges collectively.
Sending letters from France to a ship was “incredibly difficult and unreliable” in the 18th century.
Sometimes people dispatched multiple copies to different ports, hoping to reach a seaman. Different tactics were then used with the French often doubling up to send letters to multiple crew mates in one envelope.
Relatives would ask families to let them add an extra note for another loved one, hoping it would be passed across the boat.
Professor Morieux has been able to find extensive evidence of the French bunking letters which never reached the intended recipients.
The French postal administration tried to deliver the letters to the ship, sending them to multiple French ports. However, they always arrived a bit too late.
During the Seven Years’ War, a total of 64,373 French sailors were imprisoned in Britain.
1758 was a particularly busy year, with 19,632 sailors, almost a third, imprisoned.
Some died of disease and malnutrition, others were eventually released.
Writing in Annales Histoire Sciences Sociales, Professor Morieux added that his research aids contemporary attitudes to literacy.
“You can take part in a writing culture without knowing how to write or read,“ he said. ”Most of the people sending these letters were telling a scribe what they wanted to say, and relied on others to read their letters aloud.”
They made staying in touch a community effort, as they would ask someone who knew how to write, not just a professional, to write these letters.
