The Collection

Marsh’s Library has a significant collection of manuscripts which belonged to our first librarian, the Huguenot refugee Dr Élie Bouhéreau (1643-1719). Bouhéreau was a doctor who lived in the French city of La Rochelle before he was forced to flee the kingdom after the Revocation of religious toleration by Louis XIV in 1685.

 

The Project

We hold 1,237 letters written to Bouhéreau by more than 70 people between 1661 and 1685. Letters from his mother show her concern for his welfare when he was a student in Paris. Those from friends, cousins and colleagues discuss personal, business and political matters. There are letters from friends at the court in Versailles about Louis XIV’s attitudes to the Huguenots. There is much information about day-to-day life in France, including the purchase of books and shipments of imported oranges (an exotic treat at the time!) from the port of La Rochelle to Paris. The letters give a vivid sense of Bouhéreau being at the centre of a broad network of male and female correspondents.

This project presents digital images and accompanying transcriptions of 420 of the Bouhéreau letters.

We also display digital images of the other 817 letters and will add transcriptions for these items as they become available.

 

The Team

Dr Janée Allsman, a specialist in 17th-century French history, trained an AI model called ‘Transkribus’ to read the handwriting in the letters. The project was mentored by Professor Derval Conroy (University College Dublin) and Dr Jason McElligott (Marsh’s Library), and funded by the Irish Research Council (IRC) under its post-doctoral Enterprise Partnership Scheme. Online interface development was by Dr Sue Hemmens, Marsh’s Library. 

 

The Future

The funded part of the project has finished, but we will continue to add transcriptions to the digital images.