There are eight boats attached to the Borda, and the pupils are practiced almost every day, and in all weathers, in rowing and sailing, under the eye of an officer, who watches the exercises from on board a small steam-gunboat attached to the school. The ordinary studies of the school end between six and seven in the evening, and the pupils turn in at nine o’clock for their eight hours’ rest.
Thursday and Sunday, as usual in France, are exceptional days, when, after nautical calculations, (which are never omitted,) the elder pupils or ancients practice with small arms on shore, and the juniors are drilled in the use of the sword, musket, and bayonet. After this they have six hours’ hard work in maneuvering two small corvettes, provided for the purpose, that belonging to the ancients being a screw-steamer.
The boys, as a rule, are at liberty on alternate Sundays, and the most advanced every Sunday afternoon. This is a recent innovation; the pupils used to be free scarcely more than once a month; but this gave rise to much discontent and some disturbance, and the rule has, therefore, been made less severe. In addition to this liberty, however, all the lads are allowed to see their friends for a short period during the exercises on shore on Sunday and Thursday mornings, and those who are not free on Sunday are taken on shore for a change in the afternoon. During the summer months the boys bathe in the sea.
A peculiar custom exists in the school—the boys are allowed to smoke during the hour of recreation after dinner, and at certain other times; and for this reason, that as it was found utterly impossible to stop the practice entirely, it was deemed better to recognize it in moderation, and thus stop its secret indulgence and the attendant danger of fire.
The punishments inflicted in the school are extra drill and confinement, either in a small cell or in a dark hole, with a regimen of bread and water; for very grave offences, boys are dismissed or expelled. On the other hand, the marks for good conduct are numerous; there are several examinations in the various classes during the nine months of the school year, and those pupils who gain the greatest number of marks are called élèves d’élite, and wear a gold anchor on their collars, or, in the case of the first twelve, two anchors; the pupil who has gained the largest number of marks bears the high but merely nominal rank of first brigadier, and he who enters the school with the greatest success at the examination is called major. A general examination takes place at the end of the year, when the ancients who pass become aspirants in the navy, and the juniors are raised to the upper class in the school; those who fail in the examination are either sent back to their class, or rejected as unfit for the naval career. The first and second prizemen, on quitting the school, receive each a quadrant in the name of the Emperor, and the third a telescope.
The elder pupils have nearly three months’ holiday, but the junior pass a month on board another vessel, the Bougainville, for what is called the summer campaign. This vessel, which was constructed specially for the school, is a screw dispatch-boat with engines of 120 horse power; the summer voyage is settled by the Minister of Marine, and includes a visit and examination of the ports of L’Orient and Cherbourg, touching at some remarkable points of the French coast, sometimes casting anchor off the English coast, and sometimes running as far as Ferrol in Galicia.
The grand ancients, when their holidays are over, that is to say on the first of October, join the Jean Bart, which makes an annual voyage of several months’ duration. This boat was built in 1852 and made its first voyage of this kind in 1864-5. She is an 80-gun ship, of the mixed class, having engines of 450 nominal horse-power. In August of the present year she will have completed her fourth and last voyage of circumnavigation, another vessel, the Donawert, now being prepared to succeed her. The upper gun-deck of the Jean Bart is disarmed, and converted for the use of a part of the officers and the pupils, who number about a hundred, and occupy eight cabins, each with two portholes; here the young men eat, and drink, and sleep, as well as pursue their studies.
The officers of the Jean Bart consist of a full captain in command, a second captain, a chaplain, ten lieutenants, one having charge of each pupil’s cabin, or poste, as it is called, and two giving instruction in sailing and gunnery; a surgeon-major, who gives instructions respecting the means of keeping a crew in health; two assistant-surgeons, an engineer, a drawing-master, and some others.
The Minister, as in the case of the summer cruise of junior pupils, settles the course to be taken by the Jean Bart. Generally the West India islands are visited in the months of March and April, when the pupils are principally exercised in hydrographical works off St. Pierre and Fort de France; in gunnery on board, and small-arms on shore; in the daily management of boats for embarkation and disembarkation; and in the management of sails in the intricate channels of the archipelago. They are shown, moreover, how to perform difficult operations, such as the unshipping of the rudder and bringing it on deck for examination, lifting a mast, &c. The pupils are required to keep written records of all such operations, and to illustrate the narrative when necessary with drawings. When they visit foreign yards and arsenals, they are expected to give minute accounts of what they have seen there, and besides a daily journal, to write critical notices of all the different machines, methods of rigging, and maneuvers, which they have witnessed.
The difficult channel of the Isle St. Sebastian, off the coast of Brazil, that of the Bermudas, the river Hudson, and the coast of Newfoundland, are among the places selected to initiate the pupils in the difficulties of navigation. At Annapolis, in the Chesapeake, a visit is paid to the National Naval School of the United States at the season when the general examinations take place in that establishment. The voyage usually terminates with a visit to Cape Breton and some points of Newfoundland; the fisheries and drying-houses of St. Pierre and Miquelon are generally visited, and the Jean Bart returns to Brest between the 1st and 5th of August, having been absent ten months. A sailing brig named the Obligado has lately been attached to the Jean Bart as a supplementary vessel.