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Updated: May 20, 2025
Already the flag-officer and two lieutenants had been wounded by the side of Admiral Villeneuve, who courted death in vain. The Bucentaure was cut down close like a pontoon. The admiral wished to pass on to another vessel. Not a single boat was left him. When he at last pulled down his flag he could not reply with a single cannon-shot to the English vessels that were bent on his destruction.
The sails are made by women, over whom other elderly women exercise an active surveillance. The Emperor delayed only a short time to look at the 'Bucentaure'; which is the title of the magnificent vessel in which the Doge of Venice was accustomed to celebrate his marriage with the sea; and a Venetian never sees without deep chagrin this old monument of the former glory of his country.
At one o'clock the bows of the "Victory" crossed the wake of the "Bucentaure," by whose stern she passed within thirty feet, the projecting yard arms grazing the enemy's rigging.
Then a terrific broadside was let fly from her double-shotted guns, which raked the Bucentaure fore and aft, and the booming of cannon continued until her masts and hull were a complete wreck. Many guns were dismounted and four hundred men killed. The Victory then swung off and left the doomed Bucentaure to be captured by the Conqueror, and Villeneuve was taken prisoner.
He was in command of the mizzentop, and saw Nelson's ship, the Victory, pass slowly astern of the Bucentaure so close that her yards caught the other's ensign while the fifty guns of the British ship poured their fire one after the other into the stern of the French one, sweeping her gun-deck from end to end, and laying low four hundred of her crew.
The battle quickly developed into a carnage. The Bucentaure had found her range soon after twelve o'clock, when some of the shots went over the Victory. Blackwood was at this time ordered to rejoin his ship.
Nelson then engaged the Redoutable, dashing against it with a shock so violent that both vessels were thrown out of the line; the Bucentaure and the Santissima-Trinidad were also surrounded by the English. The struggle continued between Nelson and his courageous adversary; the flames were breaking out every moment upon the French vessel.
From the relative positions of the two vessels, the shot ranged from end to end of the "Bucentaure," and the injury was tremendous. Twenty guns were at once dismounted, and the loss by that single discharge was estimated, by the French, at four hundred men.
Thereupon everything about the "Bucentaure," some seven or eight ships, at least, opened upon this single enemy, as the allied rear and centre had upon the "Royal Sovereign;" for it was imperative to stop her way, if possible, or at least to deaden it, and so to delay as long as might be the moment when she could bring her broadside to bear effectively.
Almost simultaneously with the leader, the Téméraire and Neptune plunged into the line, the former closing with the Bucentaure and the latter with the Santisima Trinidad ahead. Other ships soon thrust into the terrific artillery combat which centered around the leaders in a confused mingling of friend and foe.
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