What the hell?

When I first decided to study history, my undergraduate adviser, Stephan Bourque, asked me what subjects I was interested in. I said "Roman Empire, WWII, and Napoleonic Period." He told me that if I wanted to study the Roman Empire, I'd have to learn a bunch of dead languages and WWII was so overcrowded, so I chose the Napoleonic Period.

In the course of my research, I've had to read a bunch of handwritten letters. While it has taken me years of practice to get fairly good at it, every once and a while I come across someone's writing which is just, well illegible. Here is an example of a letter from the Balli de Suffren, the French naval commander who gave the British so much trouble in the Indian Ocean during the American Revolution.

This crap is like freaking Linear B. It was so bad that most of the letters had to be transcribed/deciphered by his contemporaries. Thankfully, these copies are attached just behind the originals. However, there is the occasional one that isn't already transcribed and I have to try and decipher it. What do you think this letter says?

Another Day at the Office.

Compared to the window-less hole in the wall of the Bellamy Building, my new “office” is a palace. While not an actual palace, it is a castle – Chateau de Vincennes! Initially the site of a royal hunting lodge, like Versailles, the castle was built in the 13^th/14^th century and served as a royal residence until Louis XIV built the illustrious palace at Having served as a prison, weapons factory and even a boulangerie, the Castle had been used as a barracks since Napoleon. At the beginning of World War II, the castle was used as Gamelin’s headquarters. Unfortunately must of the castle was damaged when Waffen-SS exploded stores of explosives as the Germans retreated from Normandy. (See images here)

You can find me in the Service Historique de la Defense, Département de la Marine, which is located in the Queen’s House. The reading ream is a paradise compared to those of the Archives Nationales or the nearby Départemenet de l’Armée de Terre. With nice padded chairs, ample space to spread out documents and a friendly staff, this is researchers’ heaven.

For those who wish to stop by and see me, my office hours are M, T, W, F 9am-4pm.