In 1750s War Letters, Humanity Shows the Same Stripes

In 1758, Marie Dubosc penned a letter to her husband, Louis Chambrelan, first lieutenant on the French warship Galatee. "I could spend the night writing to you," she wrote. "I am your forever faithful wife." Unfortunately for Dubosc, who would die the following year, the letter never reached its target. The Galatee was captured by the British in 1758 amid the Seven Years' War, with its sailors held as prisoners for some time, CNN reports. More than 250 years later, 104 letters sent to the sailors, seized upon arrival at the Galatee shortly after its capture, have been opened and studied for the first time. They convey "universal human experiences," says Cambridge history professor Renaud Morieux. Indeed, in the wake of a global pandemic that separated loved ones, "what they wrote about feels very familiar."

While Dubosc sought to reassure her husband of her love, a mother sought to rebuke her son for not writing to her. Marguerite Lemoyne mentioned a previous note her son, Nicolas Quesnel, had written to his fiancee, but added she had only received news of her son from a shipmate's wife. It showcases the "ancient trope about tensions in the family between the mother and the daughter-in-law," Morieux says, per NPR. In a later letter, Quesnel's fiancee noted "the black cloud has gone" since Quesnel's mother heard from him. Morieux—lead author of a study of the letters published Tuesday in Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales—notes the messages are so special in part because they come from the lower classes at a time when many couldn't read or write. Many senders likely dictated messages to scribes.

Morieux discovered the bundles of unopened letters at the UK's National Archives while conducting research for his book, The Society of Prisoners: Anglo-French Wars and Incarceration in the Eighteenth Century. Opening the letters for the first time was "like finding a treasure box," he says, per CNN. Above all, they showcase "the power of the collective" and "how these people can only survive by relying on others." As NPR reports, "in an effort to maximize the chances of successfully communicating with a loved one, each letter had multiple messages crammed onto the paper, often from different families and addressed to multiple crewmates." Despite the group effort, the letters weren't necessarily restrained. "I cannot wait to possess you," Anne Le Cerf wrote to her officer husband, possibly referring to sex, per CNN. (More love letters stories.)