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I was conscious of an indescribable thrill when my feet touched the soil so sacred to all Frenchmen, and I somehow felt as if I were walking in fairyland as I pushed on in the dark. I had good fortune, arising from the fact that a great troop movement was taking place, with consequent confusion and crowding.
This feeling was strengthened by the death of the old Cardinal de Bourbon, which reopened at once the succession question, and compelled Philip of Spain to show his hand. He now claimed the throne for his daughter Elisabeth, as eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of Henri II. All the neighbours of France claimed something; Frenchmen felt that it was either Henri IV. or dismemberment.
Luc might strive with all his might to keep his men in the battle, but the Frenchmen could not be numerous, and it was the custom of Indians, once a combat seemed lost, to melt away like a mist. They believed thoroughly that it was best to run away and fight another day, and there was no disgrace in escaping from a stricken field. "They run! They run!
I do not know whether I have been peculiarly unfortunate in lighting on only one class of men under the present regime, but whether it be in France, Switzerland, Belgium, or Italy, that I have come across Frenchmen and had a talk with them of late years, I have noticed a prevailing discouragement, a pessimism, that certainly was absent in former days.
The sound of oars was heard on either hand. It would be impossible to fight the enemy with any hope of success. Plight was their only resource. Morton steered for the frigate. The enemy's boats continued to come after them. Morton kept a look-out for the frigate's light. The Frenchmen saw at length that the pursuit was useless, and gave it up.
Any European might feel a genuine fear of the Yellow Peril; and many Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Russians have felt and expressed it. Many might say, and have said, that the Heathen Chinee is very heathen indeed; that if he ever advances against us he will trample and torture and utterly destroy, in a way that Eastern people do, but Western people do not.
Down came the Frenchmen in gallant style, faster than they expected; and the more experienced saw, from the scattered positions of the British ships, that the result of an action at that moment would have been very doubtful.
He met there his old friend Master Crampton, and he says: "I was more beholden to the Frenchmen that escaped drowning in the man-of-war, Madam Chanoyes of Rotchell, and the lawyers of Burdeaux, than all the rest of my countrymen I met in France." While he was waiting there to get justice, he saw the "arrival of the King's great marriage brought from Spain."
He added, without emotion, that from time to time they found one such; in fact, the volunteer searchers had brought in two Frenchmen just before we arrived one to be cared for at the hospital, the other to be buried.
"Hurrah! we have knocked away her wheel," cried Bonham, who had sprung into the mizen rigging to ascertain the effect of the last broadside; "she's ours, if we are smart with our guns." The Frenchmen had just fired a broadside which had killed three of the "Vestal's" crew, knocked one of her boats to pieces, and done other damage, but had not materially injured her running rigging.
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