GAULLE Charles de. 2 L. A. S., [Scuczyn camp] 6 and 17 September 1916, to his mother Jeanne de Gaulle in Paris; 6 pages in-12 each in pencil, the 1st with its signed autograph envelope bearing German stamps and postmarks of the Offizier-Gefangenenlager. Letters from the prison camp, mentioning family and military news. 6th September. After referring to "hot and rather stormy weather", he develops his thoughts, resigned to not being able to fight: "My thoughts are so completely united with yours in these decisive days!... They are especially unceasingly focused on my brothers and cousins who are fighting. How I weep in my heart for this odious captivity, as you know, my dear little Mum! But what does my particular case matter! Let it last as many months as it takes for the result to be achieved to be complete, overwhelming! The rest is of no importance. Further on, referring to the forthcoming birth of his sister Marie-Agnès's child, he says: "how many beautiful, good little Frenchmen will be needed to replace those who have died for their country". He then spoke of his brothers, "happy and proud to learn of Jacques' appointment to the rank of lieutenant on the battlefield. I now wish him with all my heart a good commendation, which he has already deserved"; and further on, because of a forthcoming stay at Wismes: "I also hope that he will finish strengthening Pierre and that he will soon be able to begin his apprenticeship in the profession of arms. He will no doubt have the glory of delivering the final blows to the enemy, a glory for which I would have given anything. However, there are others who are more to be pitied than I am: those, for example, who were picked up by the enemy on the battlefield at the start of the campaign, in the days so long ago when the French were retreating"... 17th September. After reminiscing about his sister Marie-Agnès and a few material considerations, he wrote: "Here, the days go by one after the other, brightened up however by the excellent news that the newspapers bring us every day. We very much hope that the hundreds of German officers taken prisoner on the Somme in so few weeks will gradually be sent to Dahomey, for example. In my opinion, this is the only way to force the enemy to give us here what he owes us. You will laugh if I tell you that among the Germans who surround us there are a host of individuals - most of them educated - who have the audacity to come and talk to us from time to time about an alliance between their race and ours after peace! There is nothing to say to this, is there? other than a pure and simple shrug of the shoulders, which is the only answer we are able to give them here, and we are forced to rely on our comrades who are still at the front to make them understand what our glorious France's way of thinking is in this respect..."... LNC, i, p. 264 to 267. Enclosed is an envelope addressed to Captain de Gaulle by M. Averlant of Paris, sent to the Osnabrück officers' camp, and forwarded to the Neisse and Ingolstadt camps, with numerous military postmarks.