A passage to imprisonment : the British prisoners of war in Verdun under the First French Empire
This thesis explores parole detention as a site of transnational exchange through a case study of Verdun, a central depot for British civilian and military prisoners of war in Napoleonic France. By focusing on the interactions between captives and captors, this study throws into relief the ambiguities of nation-building and the totalisation of warfare, which kept these two countries at odds in the long eighteenth century. The main finding that has arisen from this work is the predominance of social dynamics over national, martial and religious antagonisms during this forced cohabitation, which nuances the truism of French and British identities forged against each other during the period. Furthermore, moving beyond the common assumption that the concept of honour lost its substance in France after 1789, I argue that parole detention in Verdun was based on gendered and ad hoc practices of internment, which syncretised old and revolutionary understandings of the notion. Whilst the situation of sequestered women has received little attention, this thesis makes the original claim that parole was in fact tailored to the presence of female 'voluntary captives' in Verdun. Composed of seven thematic chapters, and
Duche, Elodie
DC France
A passage to imprisonment : the British prisoners of war in Verdun under the First French Empire. This thesis explores parole detention as a site of transnational exchange through a case study of Verdun, a central depot for British civilian and military prisoners of war in Napoleonic France. By focusing on the interactions between captives and captors, this study throws into relief the ambiguities of nation-building and the totalisation of warfare, which kept these two countries at odds in the long eighteenth century. The main finding that has arisen from this work is the predominance of social dynamics over national, martial and religious antagonisms during this forced cohabitation, which nuances the truism of French and British identities forged against each other during the period. Furthermore, moving beyond the common assumption that the concept of honour lost its substance in France after 1789, I argue that parole detention in Verdun was based on gendered and ad hoc practices of internment, which syncretised old and revolutionary understandings of the notion. Whilst the situation of sequestered women has received little attention, this thesis makes the original claim that parole was in fact tailored to the presence of female 'voluntary captives' in Verdun. Composed of seven thematic chapters, and
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