by Tom Anderson
Meanwhile de Rossel reported back to La Pérouse at Albi. La Pérouse held a meeting of his officers and the colonial leaders, along with the important natural philosophers. It was obvious that Britain and France had come to war in the time while La Pérouse’s men had been cut off down in the south. La Pérouse was in a quandary: he could not learn exactly what was happening without sending a ship where it was vulnerable to being intercepted. He could send enough of his fleet to give any British attacker pause, but that would leave the colony underdefended. In the end he decided to send just one ship, the Émeraude under Captain Durand. The Émeraude never reached Madras, its intended destination. It is generally thought that the ship must have run aground in the Dutch East Indies, or been caught in a tropical storm, as no British records suggest it was ever intercepted by a Royal Navy vessel. In any case, this is considered one of the great ‘what ifs’ of speculative romantics, as Durand was perhaps the most fervent royalist and believer in absolutism among La Pérouse’s crew. If he had reached Madras and participated in the Pitt-Rochambeau accord, it is likely that the colony in La Pérouse’s Land would have looked towards Royal France. But it was not to be…
After the loss of the Émeraude, which of course he could not guess until two years had passed without word, La Pérouse insisted on waiting for definite confirmation the Anglo-French war was over before leaving. This came quite early, in March 1800, when the news was passed on by a Dutch merchantman that the Richelieu encountered near Java. La Pérouse left most of his fleet to guard the colony, but took the D’Estaing and three frigates home to France. Lamarck and Laplace came also, both having made several copies of their notes for each ship, ensuring that at least one reached France.
In the event, all four ships reached France in early November 1800. Again, history might have been different if they had landed in Nantes, which according to the official government line was a ‘special administrations area’ but was, in fact, the capital of Royal France. But La Pérouse landed in Bordeaux, held by the Republicans, and he and his men reported to Paris. They had heard confused rumours of the Revolution, mostly welcomed by La Pérouse’s left-leaning crew of idealists and philosophers. The wilder stories been dismissed as Royalist or British propaganda. They rapidly learned this was not the case when they reached Paris, and found – by the order of Jean de Lisieux, the Administrateur – the old streets being torn up one house at a time and replaced with wide boulevards in Lisieux’s favoured Utilitarian style. La Pérouse caused a stir, as no-one had openly declared a title of nobility for years. He was arrested and a court almost sent him to the phlogisticateur after a five-minute trial, but Lamarck spoke up for him and he was released. Lamarck in particular became a celebrity as his writings about the fauna of La Pérouse’s Land were incorporated into Lisieux’s own developing theories of racial supremacy. Lamarck’s idea that the harsh environment of La Pérouse’s Land had bred the large number of dangerous (poisonous, venomous, etc.) animals and plants there, an early example of theorised environmental breeding,[284] was used by Lisieux to advocate a harsh training regime for French soldiers (and as an excuse to crack down domestically).
La Pérouse was forced to renounce his title, but we shall continue to call him that, as history does. Lisieux was undecided on what to do with the colony. What France needed was trade and money, just as she had twenty years before under the King. La Pérouse’s Land could not supply that, and Autiaraux was not profitable enough for the commodities that would make money. France needed India, which she had lost to the Royalists, or the East Indies, which were Dutch. It was the latter which persuaded Surcouf, one of Lisieux’s inner circle, to suggest a new plan. Surcouf had become bored of his project to weaponise Cugnot’s steam engine on ships following the peace with Britain, and wanted to return to his privateering days. Although France was still at war with Spain and the Spanish fleet at this point, the specific situation meant that France could afford to spare some frigates for such a venture. Surcouf’s idea was to raid Dutch shipping from the East Indies under a neutral flag, or ‘pulling an Englishman’, as he called it (in reference to Francis Drake and the Spanish). If the Dutch protested, what could they do? Even with the Flemish alliance, the Stadtholder would be a fool to tangle with Revolutionary France in war, especially since his own position looked ever more precarious. Lisieux ordered his agents to stoke the fires of revolution in the Netherlands and Flanders as a distraction, then approved the plan. Surcouf, the natural philosophers, and a shaken La Pérouse returned to the fleet, expanded by seven new frigates and three ships of the line, and the fleet set off for La Pérouse’s Land to begin their new commerce raiding mission. They arrived in Albi in February 1802 to learn that the colony had suffered an Indien attack, but had successfully beaten the natives back.
Immediately after returning, La Pérouse took a sloop on a trading mission to the Mauré and never came back. What happened was never proven, but it is considered highly likely that he and his men, mostly the more Royalist in sympathy among the crew, sold their services to the Mauré in exchange for protection and a hiding place from the Republicans. La Pérouse had been profoundly affected by ravaged Paris and the terror of the phlogisticateur. He wanted nothing more to do with Republican France. The fact that the Tainui did not make much headway against the eastern alliance, but both planted new colonies in Tavay Pocnammoo using improved canoes with European designs, suggesting that La Pérouse’s men had split up and sought refuge with both nascent Mauré powers…
Chapter 48: Old Delicious and the Awkward Squad
1. The Great Cleansing
2. The War of Lightning
3. To Hold the Heart
– chapter headings in A.V. de la Costa’s seminal The Pyrenean War (1924), quoted below:
April of 1800, it can be argued, was perhaps one of the most significant months of the Jacobin Wars – and this is a title hotly competed for. March had seen peace between Britain and Republican France, with a rump Royal France in Brittany and the Vendée being tolerated (for the moment) by the new regime of ‘Administrateur’ Jean de Lisieux, whom the British satirical press immediately nicknamed Old Delicious. Lisieux was certainly unamused by this portrayal, although the authenticity of his alleged diary in which he makes chilling remarks on the subject has never been proven. However, his mention of the English Germanic Republic, in which authorities would one day phlogisticate these violators of his human rights, has led most scholars to believe that the document is a forgery...unless Lisieux was uncharacteristically prophetic.
April saw what can, possibly, be termed the first cabinet meetings of Lisieux’s regime. In truth, though no-one in Republican France would dare make the comparison, they were more in the spirit of an absolute monarch consulting with advisors before making his own unilateral decision. What checks remained on Lisieux’s power remained not with any official elected body, but with the ‘Boulangerie’, the informal group of innovative thinkers who directed French military policy, and were increasingly taking over control of civil policy as well. Thouret, who masterminded Lisieux’s scheme to cut up France into perfectly square départements each run by a (supposedly) elected Modérateur, swiftly became an integral part of the Boulangerie, and it was by this means that his Rationalist views became official policy.
Although Jacobin thinkers in Paris had long since been pumping out new ideas about metric measuring systems for length, distance and time, it was not until now that they were actually enforced. Draconian laws were enacted which punished people simply for saying the old names of the days of the week – which was often unavoidable even by the most strong-minded revolutionary, just out of habit. It was all part of Lisieux’s general idea that the people must be treated harshly if the spirit of revolution was to remain pure – if compromise was attempted, that could only pollute the spirit and necessitate a second, bloodier corrective revolution. Lisieux believed in the value of human life, at least under his own definition, and claimed never to permit legal punishments that
would impair a felon’s ability to work afterwards. He believed that, if Robespierre had been allowed to continue with his endless purges of the ‘impure’, eventually France would have been an empty hexagon of untended land with one man at its centre – Robespierre – finally driving a knife into his own throat as he concluded that not even he lived up to his own ideals of purity. Lisieux, on the other hand, advocated the notion that revolutionary purity could be gained and lost – he rejected the former “original sin” approach, as it was nicknamed by some. Of course, in order to create true revolutionary purity in the impure, methods somewhat…drastic were often required.
Initially, though, Lisieux’s focus was needfully on tackling France’s immediate political and military situation rather than his own far-reaching vision for what the Republic would become. Boulanger’s brilliant campaign in Normandy in 1799 had ended what could have been a Royalist counter-revolution. The Republicans had been unable to throw the Royalists into the sea, but the peace with Britain was nonetheless a chance that could not be missed. Lisieux was loathe to tolerate the claimant King sitting on Brittany and the Vendée, but recognised that for the moment there was no alternative. If he were to go back on his word and invade once a new army was assembled, then the fragile Fox government in Britain would fall and be replaced by more warmongerers who would simply start the conflict again. No; he was convinced the correct approach was to allow the Fox government to settle in place, to attempt to drive a wedge between London and Nantes (the de facto capital of Royal France), and to undermine Royal French interests around the world with every option one step short of war. Not only was Royal France’s mere existence an affront to the Revolution – and the man who believed he personified it – but it lent credibility to the Royalist governors-general of French America and French India. Although Republicans had mostly failed to convince those lands to go over to the Republican line even when there had been no Royal France as such, the existence of Royal France certainly made that task much harder.
However, now the Royal Navy was no longer hostile, there was no overwhelming seafaring force to swipe nine out of every ten oceangoing Republican ships with emissaries out of the seas. Paris could now begin openly sending ships to stir up trouble for the Royalists in their colonies. Lisieux immediately began this project with what few ships remained after Villeneuve’s Pyrrhic attacks on the ‘Seigneur’ fleets. Villeneuve himself was a difficult figure for Lisieux to deal with. The Royal French had traded him back in a prisoner exchange after the peace, and Republican opinion of the man was mixed. He had certainly fought bravely enough, but it was a hotly-debated question whether the British ships he had sunk had sufficiently reduced the Anglo-Royal French invasion fleet to justify losing virtually the whole remaining Republican fleet in the process. Lisieux’s private opinion was no, but recognising the man’s tarnished hero status, he sent him on a supposedly ‘flag-flying’ mission around the world. This set off in August 1800 after the shipyards had turned out some replacement ships of the line, built according to the new ‘Rational’ measurement system (not without ensuing problems) and incorporating new technologies. The Republicans also purchased some frigates from the Russians and the Danes, who sold off parts of the Swedish fleet that had come into their hands after the end of the Great Baltic War. Lisieux was more willing to engage with ‘reactionary states’ than Robespierre had been, less afraid of being ‘contaminated’ by the contact. “Their fall is assured, so why should they not be permitted to grease the downward steps themselves?” he wrote.
In truth, of course, Villeneuve’s ‘flag-flying’ mission carried weapons, pamphlets and professional terrorists to be let loose on the Royalist regimes in the French colonies. His fleet’s first stop was the West Indies, and of that incident much more can be read elsewhere.
It is perhaps surprising that Villeneuve was ever allowed to return by the Royalists, but even at that early stage, one cannot underestimate the influence of one man who had been favourably impressed by Villeneuve, in the enduringly British manner of respect for an enemy – the inimitable Leo Bone…
*
From: “The Man With Three Names—A Life and Times of Napoleone Buonaparte” (Dr Henri Pelletier, University of Nantes Press, 1962)—
For Commodore Leo Bone, the aftermath of the Battle of Quiberon looked bleak. After having successfully drawn off the superior enemy ship Jacobin, the two had fought near the Isle of Yeu. Though the Lewisborough successfully sank the foe with her carronades, she had taken enough damage that her pumps were unable to prevent the water rising in her well – her own doom was only a matter of time. With a heavy heart, and a fateful indecision over whether to throw the guns overboard for more speed – he decided against it – Bone set sail for the nearest land. By this point this was the Vendean coast. Bone trusted to luck and God that he and his men would get out of this alive. And if there were any rumours that the God ‘Old Boney’ prayed to preferred his worshippers to speak in Latin and work rosary beads, his men did not think less of him on that account. Thus was the charisma that this remarkable man held over his mostly English sailors, men from a nation whose hatred of Catholicism was sometimes portrayed as an integral part of the national identity.
The Lewisborough, very low in the water by this time, was successfully and professionally beached near the town of Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez in the south of the Vendée. Bone’s carpenter and bosun looked at the damage to the stern and shook their heads. If the ship could be repaired it could only be done in a proper shipyard, Portsmouth or Chatham. Furthermore, some of Bone’s sailors had previously sailed on ‘the horrible old Lorient’, a captured ship from a previous war whose repairs had never quite been enough to make her operate at full capacity again. Even with full repairs, the Lewisborough might not be herself again. Morale was low.
Bone’s heart sank, but he did not allow his face to show his dismay. Instead he rallied and roused his men, praising them for bringing the ship in safely. They were tired and miserable after this anticlimax to their battle, but Bone managed to keep them lively. He had a plan, a wild and dangerous plan – the kind of plan that he and his friend Horatio Nelson did best. It was a plan that could not only lead to their survival, but perhaps avoid the catastrophe they were facing. Bone knew that rescue was possible sooner or later, but without a functional ship, he could end up on half-pay for years – especially since the Republican naval threat was obviously dying out there in Quiberon even as he stood there. His men would be even worse off, suddenly ashore with no trade to work. Again like Nelson, he knew the importance of working the media to his advantage, and decided that the only way to escape such an obscure fate was to achieve some sort of filmish [cinematic] victory that would attract the attention of the Gazette. Given that he was a naval captain and his ship had just been hulled, it could be argued that this was perhaps a rather ambitious plan. But for Bone, it was hardly out of the ordinary.
The Lewisborough’s crew, under Bone’s directions, removed most of the guns from the ship by means of pulleys, singing The Sozzled Seaman.[285] With the last ‘way, hay, up she rises’, Bone was no longer in quite such an impossible situation. The Lewisborough had been a sixty-five gun ship, which meant Bone now had the equivalent of a sizeable artillery brigade under his command, including carronades and howitzers. His men were unaccustomed to land warfare, of course, but could at least keep up a rapid rate of fire if they had a position to hold. It was a daring, almost insane plan, but Bone was quite certain that he had a destiny to fulfil, and it would not abandon him to die ignominiously in such an engagement. In this he was hardly unique – such men can, perhaps, be found three to a street – but his men believed in it too, and that made all the difference.
Bone’s first act was to bring his crew to Saint-Hilaire itself, led by his Marine company under Major Rupert FitzRoy[286] to discourage any opportunists who thought this strange artillery column looked vulnerable. The red-coated Marines bore American rifles and hard expressions: though this part of the V
endée had slipped into anarchy, no-one bothered Leo Bone’s men. Saint-Hilaire was sufficiently distant from the heart of the counter-revolution that while the local Royalists had defeated and overthrown their Republican rulers, the countryside retained some Republican sympathisers and these continued to strike as partisans or bandits. Saint-Hilaire was a town under virtual siege when Bone arrived. With the Royalist mayor killed by Republicans, and his unofficial successor a nonentity, there was a power vacuum – a vacuum which Leo Bone was only too happy to fill.
He called himself ‘Napoléon Bonaparte’, in the French style, and was thankful that he had learned French at Westminster School, even if he pronounced it atrociously. Before the people of Saint-Hilaire knew what was happening, Bone had virtually taken over the town, billeting his troops there and already preparing for drills. Some equipment and ammunition had been left on the beach, Bone lacking the men to carry it all, and he somehow dragooned the natives into assisting. By the third day, it was hard to remember that Saint-Hilaire had not always been the personal fiefdom of Leo Bone, or Napoléon Bonaparte. Either way, he had come a long way from the Napoleone Buonaparte, son of a minor Corsican noble, that he had been born as…
Lest the people of Saint-Hilaire think him some boorish warlord, mere days later Bone proved his right to act in such a way. He went out ‘hunting’ with FitzRoy’s men. FitzRoy was an avid foxhunter, a sport which Bone himself had never felt an attraction for, and proved his eye when he shot seven Republican partisans dead at long range in the middle of supposed cover. That was only the start of it. The small-scale war against the local Jacobin sympathisers continued for three weeks: the final confrontation saw the rebels hole up in the inn of the nearby village of Le Fenouiller, an eminently defendable position against infantry assault. Recognising this, Bone simply revealed his artillery and pounded the place to dust. Although upsetting some of the locals with this act of absent vandalism, generally speaking the people of Saint-Hilaire, indeed the whole southern Vendée, praised his name for acting against the Republicans.