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Updated: June 19, 2025
As I walked along beside him I asked what was the occasion of the festal appearance of the town, and learned with a disagreeable shock that no other than the redoubtable Duguay-Trouin had that day put into the harbor on the vessel that lay at the jetty. "A notable visitor, truly," I said, feeling that I had run into a hornet's nest.
The torpedo-boat is moving. Dear old torpedo-boat! I know you, you're from the Havre. Guns' crews to the guns! Hullo, there's the commander! How are you, Duguay-Trouin?" He put his arm through a cleft and waved his handkerchief. Then he continued his way downstairs: "The enemy's fleet have set all sail," he said. "We shall be boarded before we know where we are. Heavens, what fun!"
From the modern world he chose Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, the great Conde, Duguay-Trouin, Marlborough, Prince Eugene, and the Marechal de Saxe; and, finally, the great Frederick and George Washington false philosophy upon a throne, and true wisdom founding a free state.
The captain being Duguay-Trouin, we knew that if it came to an action his ship would be well handled, and we had noticed that she carried far heavier metal than our own vessel. But the Dolphin had got a good start of her, and we did not suppose it possible that she could be overtaken. I had never spent a more uncomfortable night than those hours in the hold.
"I was only concerned for monsieur's safety. Certainly he shall have a smack, equipped as befits the servants of his majesty." "That is well spoken, monsieur," I said. "Is it true, may I ask, that Monsieur Duguay-Trouin is in your town?" "Not at this moment, monsieur." I thrilled with relief at this.
No doubt it was Duguay-Trouin himself, and his coming had caused his men to turn out of the cabarets. The brig was already moving from the jetty; the practised hands of my comrades were at work with the sails; and as the vessel slipped away quickly on the ebbing tide, from sheer lightheartedness and pleasure at the success of our trick they made the welkin ring with their cheers.
The name of Duguay-Trouin suggests the mention, before finally leaving the War of the Spanish Succession, of his greatest privateering expedition, carried to a distance from home rarely reached by the seamen of his occupation, and which illustrates curiously the spirit of such enterprises in that day, and the shifts to which the French government was reduced.
"He couldn't tell me his address," says the cab driver. "He lives in the Rue Duguay-Trouin, Number three," says the janitor. "What a neighborhood!" exclaims the driver. "My friend," asks of the janitor the professor who had found the door shut, "is there no meeting of the Academy to-day?" "To-day!" exclaims the janitor. "At this hour!" "What is the time?" asks the man of science.
Under these provisions, enumerated in full in a long contract, Duguay-Trouin received a force of six ships-of-the-line, seven frigates, and over two thousand troops, with which he sailed to Rio Janeiro in 1711; captured the place after a series of operations, and allowed it to be ransomed at the price of something under four hundred thousand dollars, probably nearly equal to a million in the present day, besides five hundred cases of sugar.
I never saw Captain Fogg again; but I had the pleasure to serve with Captain Vincent seven years later, when we each commanded a vessel in Admiral Baker's squadron that cruised about the Irish coasts in search of Duguay-Trouin. He retired from the service soon afterwards, and lived for twenty years longer in much contentment.
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