At Lorient, too, M. Labrousse, a post-captain in the navy, made experiments to find out the best form to give to the rams of warships, while a literary man, M. Jal by name, was hunting all the old books and archives for everything touching the manoeuvres and tactics of ancient rowing ships and galleys.
Then from paddle-ships we passed on to those with propellers which were submerged, and therefore much more easy to protect, and I went to watch the first trials of the newly-invented improvements at sea—that of our first screw-ship, the Napoleon, a name which was afterwards exchanged for that of Corse, under which she served as a despatch-boat for over forty years—of our first ironclad, a screw-ship, too, the Chaptal, built at Asnieres by M. Cave—and of the Pomone, the first frigate we built with auxiliary engines, which was fitted with a screw-propeller designed by a Swedish engineer, Mr. Erickson. But the most interesting of all these trials was that of the Napoleon, first, because, as I have already stated, she was our first screwship, and also because that particular mode of propulsion is of French invention.
An organ-builder at Amiens, of the name of Dallery, was the first person to think (in 1803) of building a boat driven by a screw. He ruined himself over it, and broke up all his machinery in his despair. The idea was taken up again later by M. Sauvage, a shipbuilder, who made some progress with it. I had known Sauvage, in 1835, in connection with another invention called a physionotype, by means of which a mathematically correct impression could be taken of the features of any face. But as everybody made an appalling grimace before putting their face into the instrument, the result, though strictly exact, was monstrously ugly.
There was more future promise about Sauvage's work on the screw-propeller than about his physionotype, but he himself did not reap the benefit accruing from it. It became public property. The English built a trial ship, the Rattler, and the Americans another, the Princeton. But the Napoleon was earlier than these, and besides was more successful than either of them. She was originally ordered as a mail steam-packet, from a private shipyard, by the Ministry of Finance, which was much bolder as to introducing innovations than the Ministry of Marine, and her construction was confided to two eminent men—M. Normand, of Havre, for her hull, and an Englishman, Mr. Barnes, for her engines and propeller. Each of these gentlemen was equally successful in his first attempt.
During the summer of 1843 I was in command of a flotilla, formed for the purpose of making experiments to compare ships of the old-fashioned type with this little vessel, which we tested in every imaginable way. At every change in the condition of the sea, M. Normand, Mr. Barnes, and I myself, who were all three of us escorting the Napoleon on board the Pluton, used to rush on deck to watch her behaviour. M. Normand would give us a lecture on her lines and her displacement wave, or the degree of her rolling or her pitching. Mr. Barnes, a great big Englishman, said never a word, but pulled a slide-rule out of his pocket and mumbled algebraic formulae. The ship was commanded in first-rate style by a very efficient naval lieutenant, M. de Montaignac, who since that time has acted as Minister for Marine Affairs.
As nobody had ever seen a screw steamer before, we aroused general astonishment wherever we went. In the course of our cruise we entered the Thames, and ascended the Medway from Sheerness to Chatham. It was in the morning, there was a slight fog. The authorities were informed of our approach, and were preparing to receive us, only delaying assembling for that purpose till they had been warned the ship was close by, either by her being caught sight of, or by the sound of her paddle-wheels striking the water. But the Napoleon, running swiftly up through the fog, making no noise whatever with her screw, took them all by surprise. When the dockyard authorities hurried up they saw her stop, and then, thanks to her screw, she turned almost in her own length, and brought up alongside the jetty—a novel proceeding over which the commodore, an old salt, was still gasping when I went ashore.
During this visit to the Thames the little flotilla went up to Woolwich, where we were welcomed by the English authorities with that frank cordiality with which they have almost always received me. We were shown both the arsenal and the dockyard. In the dockyard basin a steam corvette with paddle-wheels was lying, which had a new arrangement of which I had heard a great deal. The sponsons formed great rafts which could be lowered into the water by an ingenious mechanical contrivance, and which, in case of its being necessary to land troops, would carry a large number at a time, and even save the crew in a case of disaster. This, indeed, did occur in the Crimea and elsewhere, after our ships had all been equipped with the invention.
Commodore Sir Frederick Collier was good enough to have these rafts experimented with at my request. I turned my opportunity of seeing them to good account. When I was back in Paris, some two or three months later, the English naval captain (his name escapes me, I fancy it was Smith), who had invented this raft system, asked me to receive him. He came, so he told me, to offer his plan to the French navy, and on the strength of the interest with which I had followed the trial of his boat at Woolwich, he begged me to recommend it to the minister for that department of affairs. Further, he offered to bring me a model of it.
"Wait one moment," I replied.
I rang the bell, and sent for an old workman who was in my employment. He came, with a model of my visitor's boat and lowering apparatus in his hand, constructed on drawings I had made on my return from England. The inventor stood as though petrified at the sight. The only word he said was "Wonderful!" It appears I had caught the likeness at once. What it is to know how to draw!