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Two days afterwards I was informed by my father that you were an impostor, that all had been discovered, and that if taken you would probably be seized by the inquisition; but you had fled the country, and were supposed to have embarked at Toulon. He added, that my intended husband would arrive in a few days.
Of course the order was immediately given to clew-up and hand the sails; and in another minute or so the Juno lay with all sails furled right up in the centre of the harbour of Toulon, with a line of heavy batteries between her and the sea. While we were handing sails, a boat was seen to put off from the brig; but instead of coming aboard us, she pulled away rapidly in the direction of the town.
When the emigrants, after the campaign of 1792, passed the Rhine, the Comte de Provence resided in the little town of Ham on the Lippe, where he remained until he was persuaded that the people of Toulon had called him to Provence.
Amid these adverse circumstances, the only large operation possible to him was the close watching of the port of Toulon, conducted on the same general plan that was afterwards more illustriously exhibited before Brest, between 1800 and 1805, under conditions of surpassing difficulty.
Such moments inevitably are difficult to localize. Bonaparte in 1793 fascinates the younger Robespierre "He has so much of the future in his mind." But it is neither Toulon, nor Vendémiaire, nor Lodi, but the marshes of Arcola, two years after Robespierre has fallen on the scaffold, that reveal Napoleon to himself.
In 1792, he entered, as a soldier, in a regiment of the army marching against the county of Nice; and, in 1793, he served before Toulon, where he became acquainted with Bonaparte, whom he, in January, 1794, assisted in despatching the unfortunate Toulonese; and with whom, also, in the autumn of the same year, he, therefore, was arrested as a terrorist.
The truth was that each had a great reputation to lose, and each preferred to go to his grave with all his fame undimmed. Francis I. had a suspicion that Barbarossa was meditating the surrender of Toulon to the Emperor, and, improbable as it was, some colour was given to the King's anxiety by the amicable relations which seemed to subsist between the Genoese Corsair and his Barbary rival.
He directed a concentration of the Spanish and French navies at Cadiz, which, by its nearness to the straits, met the desired requirement. Among others, three French ships were ordered thither from Toulon. The British ministry was informed that at Cadiz were collecting Spanish vessels, said by report to be intended against Portugal.
Early in 1798 Nelson went out in the Vanguard to rejoin Lord St. Vincent off Cadiz. He was immediately despatched with a squadron, into the Mediterranean, to watch an armament known to be fitting out at Toulon, the destination of which excited much anxiety. It sailed May 20th, attacked and took Malta, and then proceeded, as Nelson supposed, to Egypt.
If the grim game of war could only have been played now as it had been even five years before, the victory would have already been with her, for the cable from Gibraltar to the Lizard had that morning brought the news from Admiral Commerell, Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, that he had been attacked by, and had almost destroyed, the combined French Mediterranean and Russian Black Sea Fleets, and that, with the aid of an Italian Squadron, he was blockading Toulon, Marseilles and Bizerta.
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