This work presents an annotated version of the letters of Major Watkin Tench, who was held on parole in the town of Quimper in Brittany between 1794-1795. Tench was writing in the period between the fall of Robespierre and the massacre of invading emigres south if Quimper in June 1795, a tense period in which deep-seated conflicts over religion and language were fuelling counter-revotionary uprisings in rural Brittany. His account illustrates and analyzes the volatile relationship between languages (English, French, Breton) and socio-political codes (republican and monarchist, genteel and plebian, Catholic and anticlerical) during the French Revolution.

Volume editor: Gavin Edwards