Anne Le Cerf wrote to her husband, Jean Topsent, a non-commissioned officer on the Galatée. “I cannot wait to possess you,” she told him. She signed it “Your obedient wife Nanette.”
He was imprisoned somewhere in England, and he never received it.
Families even added messages to each other's letters. “Staying in touch was a community effort,” Morieux said.
He went on to identify all 181 men of the Galatée's crew. The letters had been addressed to a quarter of them.