A new book based on correspondence of a French officer of the Napoleonic army was published in France in 2015.
Published in the book authentic letters partially are in the fund of the National Library of Belarus, and partially in a private collection in France.
The book is titled Charles-P. Fitte de Soucy (1776–1813): Lettres d’un officier Napoléonien....
Charles’ origin goes back to an ancient noble family close to the royal court: his grandfather was a marshal, his father was a general officer, and his mother was a governess of royal children. After the revolution in 1789 the family lost everything and had to find new means of existence. Thus Charles was an officer of the Napoleonic army and went through Austria, Poland, Prussia, Spain, and Germany from 1805 to 1812. The war of 1812 was his last trial: Charles could survive during the fallback across Belarus, but in the New Year Eve in 1813 he died under mysterious circumstances in Königsberg.
The book offers full texts of 90 letters in the original language for Josephine, Charles’ wife. They tell sincerely and emotionally about adventures of a young officer on the military roads of Europe. It’s necessary to mark that Charles was an adjutant of generals Beaumont, Kellermann, Vattier, which caused a lot of significant meetings and his letters became an extremely interesting historical source. All mentioned in the letters names are reflected in the alphabetic index (130 positions). The book contains a biographic appendix.
The authors of the book are Anatoly Steburako, candidate of historical sciences, associate professor of the Institute of Business and Management of Technology of the Belarusian State University (Minsk, Belarus) and Francoise Albertine Mass, historian genealogy amateur (Paris, France).
The book is in the fund of the National Library of Belarus.
