although định received little attention in french academia, the north vietnamese heavily relied on french sources for their accounts of the guerrilla leader. in the most detailed french account by paulin vial, định is depicted as a "criminal" or "rebel". osborne said that định's final manifesto before his death showed him "to have been a man with a high concept of duty, an awareness of his own weakness and with a sense of despair, common to many of his countrymen, at the ambivalence of the huế court".