We are delighted to announce that our new book, The Letters of the duchesse d’Elbeuf: hostile witness to the French Revolution is out now in the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series (Liverpool University Press). You can purchase a copy here.

This co-edited scholarly edition features a full transcription of six notebooks confiscated by the revolutionary authorities in early 1794 and filled with about 75,000 words in the scrawled hand of the duchess of Elbeuf. Her hostile, unique testimony covers the period December 1788 through to January 1794.

The octogenarian duchess was one of France’s richest women at the outbreak of the Revolution, and our book’s extended introduction fixes scholarly attention on her for the first time. We unpick her earlier life via a range of other archival material (twenty earlier notebooks did not survive their transfer into the possession of the state) before offering an extended study of the Revolutionary process through her testimony. The introduction also sets the Letters in the wider context of eighteenth-century epistolary culture and life-writing.

And remember: all this is complemented by our free, public digital resource of translated extracts from the same Letters. Enjoy!

—Colin Jones, Simon Macdonald, Alex Fairfax-Cholmeley

Here is some more help for those of you attempting to transcribe this next section from the Letters, which sees the duchess face a new revolutionary threat in her previously safe country retreat at Moreuil in Picardy.

Line 1: A Moreuil ce lundi 30 aoust 1790

Line 2: Je voûlois vous cacher [[inserted interline word]M^de] l’insurrection…

Line 3: mais M^de Rougé Mortemart en ayant été effrayé…

Line 4: pour les faires passer à Heydelberet [Heidelberg]…

Line 5: ville, elle l à dit à de mes amis…

Words in [bold] are editorial comment.

Can you now work through the rest of lines 2-5? The Project Team will provide the full transcription and a translation in the next post in this series.

Here is another opportunity to work with the original manuscript and test yourself against the Duchess’ handwriting, as part of our ‘Decipher the duchess’ series.

As we saw in her letter of 16 July 1789, the duchess was in Paris for the fall of the Bastille. The new political conditions signalled by this event set off a first wave of emigration by disenchanted and apprehensive noblewomen and men, including the King’s brother the comte d’Artois. The duchess herself left Paris on 27 July, but she did not leave the country; instead, she travelled eighty miles north to her country estate at Moreuil in Picardy (now in the Somme department). She remained there until March 1791, making only one visit back to the capital early in 1790. The duchess clearly regarded Moreuil as a sanctuary from the revolutionary turmoil in Paris and elsewhere, but the letter we are going to work on describes the moment when this protective bubble was finally pierced. Here is the opening paragraph of her account (click on the image to enlarge it):

There are five lines to work through. Here are some clues to help you get started:

Line 1: Provides the letter’s location and date

Line 2: Begins: Je voûlois vous…

Line 3:

Line 4: Begins: pour les faires passer…

Line 5:

More clues will be provided next week, and a full transcription and translation will follow.

Good luck and enjoy the challenge!

Here are some more clues to help you work out what the duchess was writing on 16 July 1789, during a significant phase of the early Revolution in the capital. Go to part 1 in the blog below for an introduction to this entry.

Line 1 begins: A Paris…

Line 2: J’[essai] M^de que ce petit papier vous passe…

Line 3: armées. Je ne sai point encore, de vos amis tués…

Line 4: bien, mais je ne sais si nous sommes…

Line 5: mais je sais que tout noble…

Line 6: ecrirai si le seig^r…

[Square brackets] indicate a questionable or assumed reading of the manuscript by the Project team.

This should give you more of an idea of the shape of the duchess’ handwriting. Use this as a template for unpicking other sections of the entry. We will provide a full transcription and English translation next week. In the meantime, happy deciphering!

We would like to give our blog readers the chance to work with the Elbeuf Letters for themselves – with a little help from us. As you will see, the duchess’ script has idiosyncrasies in shape, spelling and grammar that are a challenge when it comes to transcribing her writing. Why not have a go yourself at deciphering this entry from 16 July 1789? In it, the duchess reflects on scenes of violence and tension on the streets of the capital in the aftermath of the storming of the Bastille two days previously.

Detail from AN F7 4775/1

Click on the image to enlarge it. And here are some clues to help get you started:

• Line 1 is an entry heading. A very similar (and more legible) heading can be seen below     line 6
• The first sentence (line 2) reads: J’[essai] M^de que ce petit papier vous passe. Translation: ‘I will try to get this note to you, Madame.’ [Square brackets] indicate a questionable or assumed reading of the manuscript by the Project team.

We will post more clues next week, followed by the full transcription complete with our English translation. Why not subscribe to this Project Blog (see right) to receive updates automatically?

If you are interested in learning more about palaeography (the study of old handwriting), there is an excellent interactive guide to reading English scripts from c.1500-1800 on the National Archives website: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/default.htm. See also the Newberry Library’s offering for French scripts: https://paleography.library.utoronto.ca/.