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Updated: June 14, 2025
"Well, I've gone to sea with all sorts, from Admiral Brueys upwards; but fifteen little wooden dolls jointed at the knees!" "I know the sort," I put in from the hearth, where my mother had set me to watch the bouillon. "You can get as many as you like in the very next street, and at two sols apiece. I will look to that part of the cargo." "You, for example? . . ."
And is not this Admiral Brueys' own ship, looking down in scorn on the fourteen little English ships, not one carrying more than 74 guns, and one only 50? Why Napoleon had kept the fleet there was never known.
By this time all five of the French van had surrendered; the Orient was in flames and blew up about 10 o'clock with the loss of all but 70 men. Admiral Brueys, thrice wounded, died before the explosion. Of the four ships in the rear, only two, the Guillaume Tell under Admiral Villeneuve and the Généreux, were able to cut their cables next morning and get away.
The French fleet arrived at Alexandria on the 1st of July, and Brueys, not being able to enter the port, which time and neglect had ruined, moored his ships in Aboukir Bay, in a strong and compact line of battle; the headmost vessel, according to his own account, being as close as possible to a shoal on the N.W., and the rest of the fleet forming a kind of curve along the line of deep water, so as not to be turned by any means in the S.W. By Buonaparte's desire he had offered a reward of 10,000 livres to any pilot of the country who would carry the squadron in, but none could be found who would venture to take charge of a single vessel drawing more than twenty feet.
Brueys speedily discovered that the first plan was beset by grave dangers: the entrance to the harbour of Alexandria, when sounded, proved to be most difficult for large ships such was his judgment and that of Villeneuve and Casabianca and the exit could be blocked by a single English battleship.
Only two days before, he had written from Cairo to Brueys that all the conduct of the English made him believe them to be inferior in numbers and fully satisfied with blockading Malta.
I recollect that one day, Bonaparte having asked Brueys in what manner the hammocks were disposed of when clearing for action, he declared, after he had received an answer, that if the case should occur he would order every one to throw his baggage overboard.
On this subject Berthollet sometimes rallied his inseparable friend Monge. Besides, Berthollet was, with his cold imagination, constantly devoted to analysis and abstractions, inclined towards materialism, an opinion with which the General was always much dissatisfied. Bonaparte sometimes conversed with Admiral Brueys.
But these orders did not reach the admiral before the blow fell; and it is, after all, somewhat ungenerous to censure Brueys for his decision to remain at Aboukir and risk a fight rather than comply with the dictates of a prudent but inglorious strategy.
During the battle of Aboukir he was the chief of the staff, under Admiral Brueys, and saved himself by swimming, when l'Orient took fire and blew up.
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