Last Letters

By Olivier Blanc,

Book cover of Last Letters: Prisons and Prisoners of the French Revolution 1793-1794

Book description

Drawing on a centuries-old file, this volume reproduces the last letters by prisoners of the French Revolution in the last few moments before their death, and sheds new light on this turbulent time

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Why read it?

1 author picked Last Letters as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Blanc discovered in the National Archives in Paris a remarkable cache of letters kept in an old tin labelled as the property of Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor of the French revolutionary Tribunal. He was a man who in sending off the last batch of victims to be beheaded, even after hearing that Robespierre was dead and with him, the Terror, said ‘justice must run its course’

The letters, written by prisoners on the eve of their own execution, to wife, family, plangent pleas to be remembered – some containing a little keepsake: a shirt stud, maybe – were never delivered,…

From Graeme's list on the terror of the French Revolution.

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