"How long does it take to go round the world?"
"Oh, from three to three years and a half, more or less.... But reckon three and a half years rather than three."
The abbé fell back, overcome, against the raised stand of the officers' watch.
"Oh!" he murmured, "I shall never dare to appear before Marianne again!..."
"I promise to take you to the presbytery and to make your peace with her," said Bougainville.
On 15 May 1770, the frigate Boudeuse re-entered the port of Saint-Malo. It was exactly three years and a half since she had left Havre; Bougainville was not a day out in his calculation. In that time she had been all round the world.
Heaven alone knows what passed at the first interview which took place between the Abbé Rémy and Marianne.