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One of the English midshipmen, a good-looking lad with a thick crop of carroty hair, returned on board his own ship with beautiful jet black locks, to the great astonishment of the first lieutenant; while I beheld two of my cadets appear at a ball given by the officers of the garrison and indulge in such a remarkable style of dancing, that I was forced to give them immediate orders to return on board the Belle-Poule.
Two hours later we were at the mercy of another gale, a north-westerly one this time, with a bitter frost, which would not have left a timber of the Belle-Poule and the Cassard if they had been in collision, but which gave me occasion once more to admire our brave sailors' courage and devotion. We had to set all sail so as to catch the first puffs of wind.
Our captives, anxiously directed by the master-gunner, contrived somehow or other to fire a salute of twenty-one guns, which was instantly returned from the British forts, and I went ashore in the whale-boat I had brought from the Belle-Poule. The commander of the Galibi, who wanted to escort me, had manned a boat and rigged out his men for the nonce in smart striped shirts and red caps.
As soon as I was on my legs again I started for Toulon, provided with full orders and instructions, both royal and ministerial, and re-took command of the Belle-Poule, a command I was to hold in many seas, during three consecutive years.
Tudieu! how the 'Belle-Poule' kept close to the wind that day when Oh!" he cried, interrupting himself, "we shall have a change of weather; my ears are buzzing, and I feel the pain in my ribs!
You know, don't you, that the battle of the 'Belle-Poule' was so famous that women wore head-dresses 'a la Belle-Poule. Madame de Kergarouet was the first to come to the opera in that head-dress, and I said to her: 'Madame, you are dressed for conquest. The speech was repeated from box to box all through the house."
At New York I found the Belle-Poule done up as good as new, thanks to the excellent care of my second in command, M. Charner. But before setting sail I had to get through a certain number of banquets, followed by toasts, and even to go to Boston for a great ball in the old town hall, called the Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American Independence.
The Belle-Poule weighed anchor at last, but before we got past Sandy Hook a snowstorm came on. We could not see a yard ahead, and in a few minutes we had a foot of snow on deck. The rest of our return voyage was to match, in other words, it was awful.
Instead of amusing herself by saying spiteful things to her uncle, she lavished on him the most affectionate attentions; she brought him his stick with a persevering devotion that made the cynical smile, she gave him her arm, rode in his carriage, and accompanied him in all his drives; she even persuaded him that she liked the smell of tobacco, and read him his favorite paper La Quotidienne in the midst of clouds of smoke, which the malicious old sailor intentionally blew over her; she learned piquet to be a match for the old count; and this fantastic damsel even listened without impatience to his periodical narratives of the battles of the Belle-Poule, the manoeuvres of the Ville de Paris, M. de Suffren's first expedition, or the battle of Aboukir.
When the Belle-Poule had finished her cruise along the Guinea Coast she had orders to go to Brazil; so we set sail for Rio de Janeiro. On our way thither we touched at He du Prince, a Portuguese possession entirely covered with coffee plantations, the produce of which connoisseurs reckon to be the best in the world.
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