Volume 2
The manuscript presented here contains an account written by Jean-Baptiste Adrien Durand, born in Fécamp on 23 September 1767, described within the text as an officier d’infanterie and as a prisoner in Hungary in 1793. His account names several locations associated with the movement and confinement of French prisoners, including Linz, Vienne, Ebersdorf, Moson, Klein-Zell, and Pesth. Some passages state explicitly that they were written in Pesth.
The first chapter begins with his description of the early stages of imprisonment and the movements of French officers through Austrian and Hungarian territory. It is reproduced here as it appears in the transmitted manuscript.
Letter addressed to Citizen Camut, archivist of the Republic, with the draft report to the National Convention of 14 June 1796.
Translation of the letter
“Citizen Representative,
We too have horribly suffered in the claws of the Imperial Eagle! I have the honor of addressing to you this essay, an account of our misfortunes such as I was able to save from the exact searches of our jailers. I wrote it at Pesth, in Hungary, where we were confined to the number of five hundred officers and some soldiers. My comrades provided me with notes. It is accurate. You will judge if it can be of some utility to sustain the ardor of the French to fight the Austrian, and especially if it can serve to disabuse the too great number of those who obstinately believe in sentiments of justice and humanity from this atrocious government.
The circumstances might require another form for this report; but the time taken by my duties and my little practice of writing do not permit me to give it to it. These are facts, moreover, that need to be made known. If you believe it should be used, you will kindly present them in the aspect that seems most suitable to you, sending me back the draft.
Footnote: “I was then at Senlis, at the Depot of the 184th provisional demi-brigade, of which the second Battalion of the 104th Infantry Regiment occupied the center.”
Translation of the first page of the report
Rapport au Ministre de la Guerre des traitements atroces qu’ont éprouvé les prisonniers français dans la Hongrie.
(Report to the Minister of War on the Atrocious Treatment Suffered by French Prisoners in Hungary)
Exoriar aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor!…
« Puisse un vengeur renaître de nos cendres ! »
(This epigraph was read by Citizen Marie, officer of the 98th Infantry Regiment, at Krems in Lower Austria, on the Danube, on the walls of a barracks where soldiers had stayed before the column of which he was part.)
“A victim who has escaped Austrian barbarity, I have undertaken to lay before your paternal eyes the dreadful yet faithful picture of the unheard-of cruelties by which our unfortunate countrymen were made to perish, in the midst of your fellow citizens, in the very depths of despair. (¹)
It may be useful to awaken within you an indignation that must equally stir the heart of every Frenchman when he learns of the vile purpose to which the Imperial government and its subordinate agents resorted by the most abominable means, in order to rid themselves of the numerous prisoners whom the hazards of war—after the disastrous defection of Dumouriez—had placed in the power of this modern Nero.
The sorrowful narrative I am about to begin would seem unbelievable were it not confirmed by so many witnesses who endured the very atrocities it contains.”
(¹) Our convention for exchanging prisoners having been abandoned, we asked the Austrian officers when our soldiers would be exchanged.
End of translation
Historic context
The defection of General Charles-François Dumouriez in April 1793 marked one of the most stunning reversals of the French Revolution. Only months earlier he had been celebrated as the victor of Valmy and Jemappes, the savior of the young Republic; yet, confronted with the radicalization of the Revolution and the execution of Louis XVI, Dumouriez broke with the Convention, attempted to march his army against Paris, and finally passed over to the Austrians. His betrayal shattered the fragile equilibrium of the Revolutionary Wars and cast immediate suspicion on every French soldier who fell into enemy hands.
The consequences for French prisoners of war were catastrophic. The agreements governing exchanges were abruptly abandoned. Austrian authorities, fearing further defections or subversion within their own ranks, adopted increasingly severe measures. Thousands of French soldiers captured on the Rhine, in Belgium, and along the Danube found themselves transported deep into the Habsburg territories—into Styria, Lower Austria, and the remote counties of Hungary—where they languished in barracks, fortresses, improvised depots, or forced-march columns that often resembled chains of convicts more than military captives. Many perished from hunger, disease, exposure, or direct brutality; others survived only to recount the horrors they had witnessed.
Map of the approximate route to Hungary described by Durand
Map of the approximate route to Hungary described by DurandThe manuscript presented here, addressed to the French Minister of War, is one such testimony. Written by a soldier who escaped what he calls “Austrian barbarity,” it is both a personal account and an act of moral accusation. Its author seeks not pity, but justice: a careful and faithful tableau of the treatment inflicted upon French prisoners in Hungary, offered to the “paternal eyes” of the Minister so that the truth might be known at last. The narrative that follows is at once sorrowful and indignant, its tone sharpened by the Latin epigraph—borrowed from Virgil—invoking an avenger rising from the ashes of the oppressed.
Without the corroborating testimony of numerous surviving prisoners, the events described might seem unbelievable. Yet they form part of a larger, now largely forgotten history: the suffering of thousands of Revolutionary-era captives whose fate was sealed not on the battlefield, but by political collapse and diplomatic rupture. This manuscript restores their voices and preserves the memory of what they endured.
Following the prisoner writings, Durand inserted a substantial theatrical work that stands apart from the gravity of the first pages: a seventy-seven-page vaudeville titled “Le Bienfait du Divorce.” This play was written to amuse and distract his fellow prisoners, who were to perform or recite parts of it during their internment. In fact it was not as the jailers went to forbid such activities, but is was distributed to his comrades for their amusement. It reflects a strikingly modern subject. Divorce, introduced by the French Revolution in 1792, was a new legal right and had not existed under the Ancien Régime. Durand’s decision to create a comic work based on this radical reform—at a time when he and his companions were confined in enemy territory—underscores the mixture of resilience, wit, and political awareness that characterizes his work. The play is preceded by an “Avertissement,” followed by a dedicatory letter to his friend and fellow officer Laboissière, and then unfolds in songs, couplets, dialogues, and light theatrical scenes intended for performance among the prisoners.
After the vaudeville, Durand continued the volume with a long and lively sequence of polemical verses under the collective title “Combat polémique.” These short pieces include satirical poems, epigrams, playful attacks on rival writers, defenses of friends, and humorous commentary on contemporary political debates. Many are addressed directly to individuals, offering glimpses into Durand’s circle and the literary culture of Revolutionary soldiers. The volume ends with translations from Latin and Italian, a statistical notice on Fécamp, an essay on the invention of playing cards, an inscription written “dans une vaste chambre,” and several final verses, completing a manuscript of exceptional range and cohesion.
