In Cornwall La Tour d’Auvergne occupied himself with literary pursuits, especially with philology, and was pleased and interested to find how much there was in common between phrases and words of Cornwall, and those of Brittany. Concerning his captivity he wrote thus to Le Coz, Archbishop of Besançon:
‘I will not bother you with an account of all I have had to suffer from the English during a year of captivity, they being no doubt egged on by our French é[migrés] and p[rinces]. My Republican spirit finds it hard to dissemble and to adapt itself to circumstances, so I shall show myself to be what I always have been, Frenchman and patriot. The revered symbol of my nation, the tricolour cockade, was always on my hat, and the dress I wore dans les fers was that which I wore in battle. Hence the hatred let loose against me and the persecutions which I have had to endure.’
He returned to France from Penryn, February 19, 1796, and was killed at Oberhausen in Bavaria in June 1800.
From the following extract from Legard’s biography, and from the phrase dans les fers which I have italicized above, La Tour d’Auvergne would seem to have been in prison, possibly for persistent adherence to cockade-wearing:
‘It was horrible to see the misery of so many brave Frenchmen, crammed into unwholesome dungeons, struggling against every sort of want, exposed to every rigour and every vexation imaginable, and devoured by cruel maladies. La Tour d’Auvergne kept up their courage, helped them in every way, shared his money with them, and was indignant to hear how agents of the Government tried to seduce them from their fidelity, corrupt them, and show them how hateful was the French Government.’
After Trafalgar the Spanish prisoners were confined at Gibraltar, the French, numbering 210 officers and 4,589 men, were brought to England. The rank and file who were landed at Portsmouth were imprisoned at Forton, Portchester, and in seven hulks; those at Plymouth in the Millbay Prison and eight hulks; those at Chatham in four hulks. The officers from the captured ships Fougueux, Aigle, Mont-Blanc, Berwick, Scipion, Formidable, Intrépide, Achille, and Duguay Trouin, were sent to Crediton and Wincanton.
Admiral Villeneuve and his suite were first at Bishop’s Waltham, where he was bound by the ordinary rules of a prisoner on parole, except that his limits were extended; he was allowed to visit Lord Clanricarde, and to retain, but not to wear, his arms.
He had asked to be sent to London, but, although this was not granted him, he was allowed to choose any town for parole, north or west of London, but not within thirty miles.
He had leave to visit any of the neighbouring nobility and gentry, and his lieutenants could go three miles in any direction. He chose Reading, which was not then a regular parole town, although it became one later. Hither he went with Majendie, his captain, whose third experience it was of captivity in England (he had been actually taken prisoner five times, and had served two years, one month, twenty-five days as prisoner in England), Lucas of the Redoutable, and Infernet of the Intrépide. Villeneuve and Majendie attended Nelson’s funeral in London, and a little later Majendie had permission to go to France to try to arrange some definite system of prisoner-exchange between the two countries. In March 1806 Villeneuve was exchanged for four post-captains, and went to France with his officers and suite on the condition that once in every two months he gave notice to a British agent of his place of residence, and was not to change the same without notifying it.
Upon his arrival in Paris Villeneuve found that Lucas and Infernet had been much honoured by Bonaparte and made rear-admirals. No notice was taken of him by Bonaparte, who had always disliked and despised him, and one day he was found stabbed at the Hôtel de la Patrie, Rennes. Bonaparte was suspected of foul play, and again was heard the saying, ‘How fortunate Napoleon is! All his enemies die of their own accord!’ At St. Helena, however, Bonaparte strenuously denied the imputation.