Let me add, by the way, that the old workman to whom I have just referred had been a ship's carpenter with the fleet commanded by Villaret de Joyeuse in the naval engagement which we call the Battle of the 13th Prairial, and the English that of the 1st of June. At my house he often met an academician, as old as himself, of the name of Dupaty, who had also been a sailor, and present at the same battle. The two old warriors would interchange recollections, which amused me much, and often interested me deeply as well.
From them I learnt that before the fleet sailed from Brest to fight the British it was "purified" (epuree). The captain and two lieutenants of the flag-ship, the Cote d'Or, were guillotined, and the ship's name changed into the terrifying one of the Montagne. The captain of another ship, the Jean Bart, had also been beheaded. Thousands of sailors and seasoned marines, whose opinions were not trusted, were drafted into the land-forces, and replaced by others who were pure Republicans, but who did not know their work. POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES, Jean Bon St. Andre, commissary of the republic with the fleet, and afterwards prefect of Mayence under Napoleon (his very name marked him out for the post!), had caused a guillotine to be erected on board every ship. It was set up forward at the foot of the foremast. Yet all these terrorising measures and this revolutionary disorganisation did not bring us victory. They brought indeed nothing but defeat, attended by downright carnage. The valour of our crews often amounted to actual heroism. But they had no skill. They were killed, but they could not deal death themselves. Every English shot told. Every French one flew wide. It is most distressing, on consulting the annals of the two navies, to notice the enormous losses on board the French ships compared with the insignificant number of men killed or wounded on the English ones. True it is, that at sea, just as on dry land, extemporised arrangements are disastrous things, and that, as I have already asserted, nothing can ever replace professional skill and the long established habit of obedience to superior orders and general discipline.
That wonderfully dramatic, if sometimes contested episode, of the Vengeur going down into the waves with all her crew, sooner than surrender, is supposed to have taken place at the close of the battle of the 13th Prairial. I have often heard the story attributed to Barrere, who, being obliged to give an account of the lost battle to the Convention, endeavoured thus to gild the pill. I questioned my two old sailor friends eagerly concerning this incident of the struggle wherein they had both played their part.
On another occasion I made personal inquiries of one of the last survivors of the Vengeur, to whom I had been commissioned to convey the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Putting together what I gathered from these various individuals, and what I collected elsewhere, I believe the exact truth concerning the episode in question to be as follows:
Towards the end of the fight, after having grappled for a long time, at close quarters, with the British warship the Brunswick, the Vengeur, riddled with shot on every side, and utterly dismasted, was shipping water through her ports with every roll of the sea. In this condition she must have sunk before long. The engagement was over—it was six o'clock at night. The English warships Alfred and Culloden, and the Rattler, cutter, came to the Vengeur's assistance, and set to work, with the few of their boats which had not been smashed during the fight, to save Renaudin, her plucky captain, and his son, first of all, and then take off the crew. The Alfred took off two hundred and thirteen men, the Culloden and Rattler almost as many more; but the work of rescue was still going on when the ship foundered, carrying with her not only all the most seriously wounded men, but about forty unwounded sailors, who seeing death was inevitable, bravely greeted its approach with shouts of "Vive la Nation! Vive la Republique!" The story is such a splendid one as it is, that it needs no imaginary embellishments whatever.
Let me return for a moment to my excellent academician friend, M. Dupaty, whose acquaintance I had made in the most absurd fashion. In the palmy days of the warlike enthusiasm of the Citizen Guard the worthy Dupaty was a captain in the 1st battalion of the 2nd Legion, commanded by Commandant Talabot. One evening, when he was on guard at the Palais Royal, he had been reciting some verses in my father's drawing-room, and, somewhat intoxicated perhaps by poetic enthusiasm, he begged the King to put one of his sons into his company. His Majesty burst out laughing and said:
"There's Joinville, he knows all his rifle-drill very well; he has had one of the old Invalides to teach him. He'll do for you."
So I was put into a National Guard's uniform, with a knapsack stuffed with hay on my back (in the ardour of that moment the chic companies all wore knapsacks), and was sent to drill with my company on the Rue de Londres drill ground, where the Quartier de l'Europe now stands. A more ridiculous proceeding cannot be imagined, but old Dupaty was perfectly enchanted. He was still more delighted when he succeeded in getting one of his works, a comic opera called Picaros et Diego given at the theatre in the Chateau of Compiegne, in honour of the marriage of my sister Louise and the King of the Belgians. But lo! at the climax of the piece, the principal performer came forward, before the newly married couple, the Royalties, and all the great personages forming the audience, and burst forth with a gag couplet, which nobody expected.
Oui, c'en est fait, je me marie,
Je veux vivre comme un Caton.
Il fut en temps pour la folie
Il en est un pour la raison!
[Footnote: Rough translation:—
Yes! all is o'er, I'm going to wed,
Like Cato I'm resolved to live.
The time for youthful folly's sped,
My life to Reason now I'll give!]
As King Leopold was not reckoned to have led a life quite devoid of love affairs, the appropriateness of the remark had a wonderful effect. All the grandees hung their heads in a row, and the rest of the audience struggled with a violent desire to burst out laughing.