{"id":7353,"date":"2013-03-12T15:26:34","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T19:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.brown.edu\/bulspecialcollections\/?p=988"},"modified":"2013-03-12T15:26:34","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T19:26:34","slug":"fleurs-des-tranchees-trench-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/fleurs-des-tranchees-trench-flowers\/","title":{"rendered":"Fleurs des Tranch\u00e9es = Trench Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"

It arrived on my desk one morning.\u00a0 A handmade scrapbook labeled Correspondances Militaires, 1916-1917<\/a> <\/em>covered in paper the color of the French military uniform – bleu horizon<\/em>.\u00a0 Each letter was carefully pasted along one edge to a thin strip of paper.\u00a0 Each letter was written to Emile Toulouse from his brothers Eug\u00e8ne and Jean and a smattering of friends and cousins.\u00a0 They all served France during World War I.\u00a0 Emile served as a firefighter in Paris.\u00a0 Eug\u00e8ne served in the infantry.\u00a0 Jean served with the artillery.<\/p>\n

The most important function of war time letters is simply to assure family and friends that one is still in this world.\u00a0 Eug\u00e8ne writes at the beginning of almost every letter and card exactly the same sentence:\u00a0 \u201cJe suis toujours en bonne sant<\/em>\u00e9 et d<\/em>\u00e9sire que ma lettre te trouve de m<\/em>\u00eame<\/em>. = I am still in good health and hope that my letter finds you the same.\u201d\u00a0 The fact that Eug\u00e8ne wrote that for over 2.5 years (March 1915 until November 1917) while serving in the trenches in France is remarkable.\u00a0 In the optimistic early days of 1915, he gathered flowers from each of the trenches.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Flowers collected in the trenches by Eugene Toulouse, 1915<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By December 29, 1916, Eug\u00e8ne\u2019s spirits were flagging and for good reason.\u00a0 Below is a translated excerpt from that letter.<\/p>\n

\u201c . . . From time to time here at this Compagnie de D\u00e9p\u00f4t we are almost as brutally treated as you are, and twice I was almost thrown in jail without any reason. You better believe it\u2019s harsh to be treated that way especially because it\u2019s possible that in one week we will have our pants on fire and our feet freeze. I am beginning to believe that we will never beat them although you know my morale was pretty high.\u00a0 I can\u2019t wait for the escape.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Translation by Dominique Coulombe, Senior Scholarly Resources Librarian]<\/p>\n

To read that letter and all the others in this diminutive but interesting scrapbook visit the John Hay Library<\/a> and request the Toulouse Family Correspondence (Ms.2012.017)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It arrived on my desk one morning.\u00a0 A handmade scrapbook labeled Correspondances Militaires, 1916-1917 covered in paper the color of the French military uniform – bleu horizon.\u00a0 Each letter was carefully pasted along one edge to a thin strip of paper.\u00a0 Each letter was written to Emile Toulouse from his brothers Eug\u00e8ne and Jean and … Fleurs des Tranch\u00e9es = Trench Flowers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,35,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collections","category-general-interest","category-new-acquisitions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}