“I found I was entered on the books as Julian Coulancourt. Brest at that time was in a state of intense excitement. The tricolour was formally adopted as the national flag, and the navy of Republican France declared cleansed and regenerated. Though told by that villain Marachat, the tool of Collet d’Herbois, that my beloved mother and sister had perished, there were at times moments when I cheered myself with the idea that they yet lived. I knew that Herbois was the fiendish persecutor of my mother, and his tool Marachat might have spoken falsely to torture me. Why I was not taken out and shot with the first group is a mystery to me. However, the very idea that they might still live enabled me to sustain the hardships I went through. Divine hope, the sheet-anchor of man, held me up against despair.
“At this time it was decreed by the National Convention that the captain or any officer of any ship-of-the-line carrying the Republican flag, who should haul down the national flag to an enemy, however superior, unless actually in danger of sinking, should be stigmatised as a traitor, and suffer death. It was my lot to be placed on board the seventy-four gun-ship Vengeance, then commanded by Noel François Renaudin, one of the bravest and at the same time kindest-hearted commanders then in the service of the Republic. I have good reason to remember him and his gallant little son, then a mere child, scarcely more than eleven years old.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Passports were not, at the period of the French Directory, framed in the same manner as they were some years afterwards.
CHAPTER XXIV.
“At this time the French fleet was ready for sea, and I experienced the most painful thoughts; here I was, an Englishman by birth and feelings, about to be forced to fight against my countrymen, though determined in my own mind when the moment arrived I would refuse to do so, and take the consequences. As long as my duty consisted in aiding to work the ship, or any seaman’s duty, I would do it willingly. At times I felt sanguine of being able to escape onboard an English ship. Some days after leaving Brest, it was my extreme good fortune to save the life of Captain Renaudin’s son. This fine young boy was full of life and spirit; his father was a widower, who doted on him; and Alfred was his only child.
“He used frequently to play about the quarter-deck, and would manage to climb up the mizen rigging, though his father usually prevented him. One day the ship going through the water at the rate of seven knots, and a cross swell, Captain Renaudin was writing in his cabin, when the young boy came on deck, and shortly after began climbing up the mizen rigging. I was then employed doing some trifling job to the ratlines, when the boy passed me, laughing. I begged him earnestly to come back, and even called to the officer on the quarter-deck. He heard me, and looking up, beheld young Renaudin.
“‘My dear boy, come down,’ exclaimed the lieutenant, ‘it’s naughty of you to go there. Your papa will be angry.’
“At that moment the ship rolled to port; somehow the child lost his footing, and fell; I grasped his garments, but lost my footing; and striking my feet forcibly against the rigging, we both fell into the sea. I did this to avoid touching the side, which would have killed us both. I had been a good swimmer from a very early period, so I kept the child’s head up. Oh, what a brave child that was—he was all alive, and without fear, notwithstanding the terrible shock with which we came against the water, going under several feet. A scene of indescribable confusion ensued on board the ship. The father wanted to plunge into the sea, though he was incapable of swimming; but the first lieutenant held him, saying—