II

The Pomp and Glory

A MIGHTY French armada lay at anchor in the open sea. To the west stood the coast of Georgia, with the low, long shoreline of the Tybees necklaced by the white sand beaches. From the mastheads of the great ships-of-the-line streamed the fleurettée banners of the Bourbons. “They stretch,” wrote General Prevost, “from off Beaufort North, as far to the Southward as we could see from Tybee Light.”¹ Most of them were two-deckers though some were of the triple deck class. Some were old ships that had fought in the naval battles of the seventeen-fifties. Others were modern and Nelson was to know the thunder of their guns in the days of Napoleon. Like song from the lips roll the names of these giants of the deep—Languedoc, Diadème, Annibal, Zélé, Vengeur, Dauphin Royal, Fantasque, Guerrier, Tonnant, Robuste, César, Vaillant, Sagittaire, Provence, Magnifique, Fendant, Hector, Fier Rodrigue.

The officers were for the most part members of the nobility which formed a close corporation in the French navy of that day. “You may think it incredible,” wrote John Paul Jones at the time, “but it is a fact that a royal ordinance is in force, not long ago promulgated, requiring that candidates for promotion from lieutenant to captain must first of all produce proof of noble lineage for at least four generations back of their own, or must be members by heritage of the order of the Chevalier of St. Louis!”

Great names were to be found among these officers. There was the Comte de Grasse, a hulking man with a thousand-year-old patronym whom undying fame at Yorktown and then bitter defeat in the West Indies awaited during the next three years. No less famed was the name borne by the Marquis de Vaudreuil who commanded the Fendant. Of the family of Louis de Barras, another of these mariners, a French proverb said, “Noble as the Barras, as ancient as the rocks of Provence.” A self-effacing veteran of forty-five years’ service in the navy, Count de Barras was, like de Grasse and de Vaudreuil, to have a prominent role in the great victory at Yorktown.

One of the ablest of these seafaring aristocrats was the Comte de La Motte-Piquet, a small, thin, ugly man who had been the first officer of a European power to salute the flag of the young American republic. Gui-Pierre, Comte de Kersaint, captain of the famous frigate Iphigénie, and the Marquis de la Prévalaye belonged to two of France’s most illustrious naval families. The latter was destined to have the privilege of delivering to Congress the treaty of peace recognizing the independence of the United States. Among the most popular and capable of the Bourbon sea captains of the day was Comte d’Albert de Rions, commander of the Sagittaire. “If you had given me him when I asked you, we should now be rulers of India,” the great de Suffren was to tell the Ministry two years later.

Pierre-André de Suffren, now fifty years old, commanded the flotilla of five ships which d’Estaing ordered into the Savannah River to seal the entrance. Visitors aboard the vessel of this son of the Marquis de Saint-Tropez got a royal welcome. The Chevalier de Pontgibaud tells how he was compelled to drink such a quantity of punch on one occasion that he nearly fell into the sea in leaving the ship. The captain of the Fantasque was extremely corpulent. While dining with Hyder Ali in India he experienced such difficulty in sitting on a carpet that the ruler ordered cushions brought for him. “Etiquette was not made for such as you,” observed the understanding Nabob.

Suffren could boast of an interesting career in the navy, commencing at the age of fourteen. It included service in the caravans of the Order of Malta. But his greatest fame lay ahead. Largely upon the recommendation of d’Estaing, who recognized his genius, he was placed in command of a squadron sent two years later to the Indian Ocean. His fighting record in those waters during 1782–83 would rank Bailli de Suffren as the greatest French naval officer of his time.

Another interesting figure among these officers was the Comte de la Pérouse, captain of the frigate Amazone. Watching the big September sea moons come up off Carolina, the thirty-eight-year-old mariner must have brooded during these weeks over the ever faithful Creole girl he could not marry because of the disapproval of his ambitious parents. A smile perchance displaced the pensive mood of M. de la Pérouse when he thought of Thomas MacKenzie, commander of the sloop Ariel which his frigate captured off Beaufort. The plucky battle this young Englishman put up and his attractive personal qualities “inspired a bit of enthusiasm” among the French, said d’Estaing.² Their enthusiasm was understandable. For here was a man who made war in a way a Frenchman well might envy! Strange cargo was found aboard H.M.S. Ariel. Her complement included the mistress of Captain MacKenzie. “One is able to say that he has vigorously defended her,” the witty Louis-Antoine de Bougainville remarked in his Journal at the time.

One day the long romance of Count de la Pérouse was to end in marriage. Then he would sail off to explore the blue immensity of the Pacific where he found uncharted isles, the strait north of Japan which bears his name, and a mystery-shrouded fate on a coral reef in the New Hebrides.

Men of scientific renown were along, including the Marquis de Chabert who was widely known for his work as a nautical astronomer and hydrographer. The researches of the Chevalier de Borda in the metric system field and in the measurement of the inclination of the magnetic needle were no less applauded in Europe. Comte de Chastenet de Puysegur had discovered mummified remains while exploring a cave at Teneriffe which permitted archeologists to connect the extinct Gauches with the Indians of South America. Puysegur would later prepare and publish the massive Détail sur la navigation aux côtes de Saint Domingue.

Other well-known names in the fleet included those of Comte de Broves whom Admiral d’Estaing was to leave in command of the squadron when he went ashore; the Comte de Bruyères-Chalabre, captain of the Zélé; Marquis de Poype-Vertrieux, captain of the César; Comte de Bernard de Marigny; Marquis de Pontèves-Gien; the Chevalier de Capellis; and two young officers with great French names—Comte de Colbert and the Marquis de la Galissonière.

But the most famous of these sea captains was not of the nobility. Louis-Antoine de Bougainville belonged to the faction in the French navy known as the “blue” as distinguished from the “red” party—one who had not entered the naval service as a career man and ascended through the grades. Bougainville was one of the more interesting figures of his time. In his youth he had written a brilliant treatise on integral calculus. Abandoning the law for the profession of arms, he secured the influence of Madame de Pompadour in becoming an aide to Montcalm with whom he served with considerable distinction in Canada. After a turn as a diplomat at London he had successfully colonized the Falkland Islands. But it was as one of the greatest of global navigators that M. de Bougainville is celebrated. In his interesting book describing his voyage around the world aboard the Boudeuse from 1766 to 1769 he wrote with discernment and humor of the strange peoples who inhabited the far-away islands in far-away seas he had visited. His name is preserved by the flaming tropical flower called Bougainvillea and by a well-known island in the Solomon group.

During the sojourn of the French fleet off the Georgia coast we shall hear more than once from the captain of the 74-gun Guerrier whose embittered soul was to give vent in his meticulously kept journal to many a choice insult of Vice-Admiral d’Estaing.

It was the late afternoon of September 9th. From the deck of the Languedoc the coast was a haze which faintly rimmed the oriflamme west. The French long boats had gathered near the great flagship. They were crowded with the troops who were to be moved down the coast a few miles southward for the landing. A place on the Vernon River called Beaulieu had been selected as the point of debarkation. Some of France’s best regiments were represented. There were detachments from the Armagnac, Dillon, Agénois, Gâtinais, Foix, Hainault, Auxerrois, and Cambresis Regiments. Among them were grizzled veterans of Rossbach, Minden, and even Fontenoy.

The launches bearing the troops of Sa Majesté très-Chrétienne rolled sickeningly in the ground-swells of the Atlantic. As many as a hundred men were in some of the boats. They were immensely uncomfortable in their tight-fitting linen breeches, leggings that reached above the knee, and stiff collars which regulations required to be hooked. Broad cross belts supporting heavy cartridge-boxes and tri-cornered hats that shaded ears but not eyes added to their miseries. The lot of the French foot soldier of the era was a bad enough one under any circumstances. Often he was not even known by his own name. Rosters of d’Estaing’s army contain such noms de guerre as Vive L’Amour, Bien-Aimé, Jolicoeur—euphemisms which perhaps helped to hide the “filth, vermin and misery” that Marshal de Saxe said was to be found beneath their façade of “well groomed, white powdered hair.” There was much grumbling. Since arriving off Georgia the commander-in-chief never seemed quite certain what he was up to. Such delays!

Tall Charles-Henri, Comte d’Estaing—Vice-Admiral of France, Lieutenant General of the Armies of the King, Chevalier of the Orders, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of His Most Christian Majesty in America—might well feel the sense of personal power as he reviewed the troops in the boats gathered near the towering Languedoc. His sensitive face, almost feminine in its grace (its weaknesses unable to escape the chisel of the famous Houdon), was creased with care. The past few days had been hard ones. He had just returned from a fatiguing foray on Tybee Island. The General was never one to spare himself, “working night and day,” said a French naval officer—“sleeping only an hour after dinner, his head resting upon his hands, sometimes lying down, but without undressing.”³

No empty words were those of official documents which styled him “un très haut et très puissant seigneur.” A unique privilege had been gained for the descendants of Dieudonné d’Estaing when that hero sacrificed his life to save King Philip Augustus at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214. As a result the d’Estaing family was entitled to wear the coat-of-arms of France. A darling of the French court from boyhood, Charles-Henri d’Estaing could boast that he was “brought up about the person of the dauphin who distinguished me.”

Despite his fifty years he possessed, according to one of his naval officers, “the enthusiasm and the fire of a man of twenty.” With the blue ribbon of the Order of Saint-Esprit worn across his white jacket in the shape of a cross he had made a gallant figure a few weeks before at Grenada leading his troops to the breach and cheering them on with “Soldats, en avant, suivez-moi! Vive le Roi!” It must have been comforting to Louis XVI to know that the throne was supported by stalwart descendants of the men who in olden days had defended the marches with their battle axes and their lives. “The King never had a subject who loved him better, and who is a more worthy citizen,” wrote John Paul Jones in 1778.

M. d’Estaing was more than a courageous fighter. He was a man of considerable intelligence and a tireless worker. A fluent writer, his pen could be turned to poetry and even to a tragedy in verse (Les Thermopyles, 1791). His manners were elegant. He was unstinting in his praise of deserving officers and relentless in his efforts to secure recognition for them. But grave faults offset these better qualities. This favorite of Versailles, whether in the day of Madame Pompadour or of Marie Antoinette, possessed the weaknesses of the courtier. He had wasted much of his wife’s fortune in gambling and high living. The Comtesse had been compelled to bring litigation to separate her estate. A faithless husband, Count d’Estaing was the father of a bastard son in Auvergne and the reputed sire of another in Paris.

He was, above all, inordinately ambitious. His career had been and would continue to be one long pursuit of personal advancement. To that end he was forever intriguing in the antechambers of Versailles. “No mind,” General Henry Lee would write in scathing judgment, “was more obedient to the calls of duty, connected with the prospect of increasing his personal fame, than that of the French admiral.”⁴ Not a few of the latter’s colleagues agreed. “The ambition of Count d’Estaing is easily excited,” complained an anonymous naval officer who described him as “avide de gloire.” Bougainville and others were bitterly to inveigh against “the ambitious vice admiral” while the fleet was on the Georgia coast.

In the Seven Years’ War d’Estaing’s restless quest for glory led him to follow the letter rather than the spirit of the parole he had given after being wounded and taken prisoner at Madras. Turning privateer after his release, he had ravaged the English settlements on the Persian Gulf, satisfying his sense of honor by removing himself to a small boat and becoming a mere spectator in time of actual combat. Admiral Boscawen threatened that if he ever got the “villain” in his power he would “chain him upon the quarter-deck and treat him like a baboon.” The Count had the misfortune to be captured on his way home. He was held for a time under close surveillance in a dungeon at Portsmouth, an experience that did not increase his love for la perfide Albion. “May Heaven grant,” he is supposed to have exclaimed on one occasion, “that before my death I may see the moment when these proud islanders shall not possess either continent or island in the new world.”

Tired as he was on September 10th, the Vice-Admiral could take time to pen a polite note of encouragement to one of his “young heroes,” exhorting a promising officer to continue his study of the regulations pertaining to the infantry service. Louis-Marie, Vicomte de Noailles was among the most engaging of the youthful noblemen who had accompanied d’Estaing to Georgia. The accomplishments of this handsome, well-built soldier included that of being one of the best dancers of his day. He had been the beau idéal of the Marquis de Lafayette, his brother-in-law. One might easily guess from the colonel’s insigne of this twenty-three-year-old soldier that he was a scion of some great feudal family. He was indeed. His father, the potent Duc de Mouchy, was a Marshal of France. “I love him, I esteem him,” Count d’Estaing had recently informed the Duke. His young Colonel possessed, he reported to the Minister of Marine, “l’amour pour la guerre.” “The troops of his division love him. Oui, Madame la Maréchale, his division—for I beseech you to believe that Vicomte de Noailles commands one.”⁵ So the ever politic General d’Estaing had written to this nobleman’s mother after the capture of Grenada. Madame la Maréchale was none other than the celebrated “Madame Etiquette” well known in French history as the strict and ceremonious lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette.

Equally prominent in the après nous le déluge set in France was the commander of the Dillon Regiment—Arthur, Count Dillon, twelfth in his line in the peerage of Ireland. Colonel Dillon’s great-grandmother had been the natural daughter of Charles II and Barbara Villiers. For generations the Dillons had served the rulers of France. They were bright luminaries in the firmament of Versailles where the Comtesse de Dillon was a particular favorite of the Queen. Another Dillon who had come with the Irish Regiment was Théobald-Hyacinth Dillon. Edouard, the famous “le beau Dillon” of the careless, profligate days at the Petit Trianon and a reputed favorite of the impressionable young Queen, did not accompany the Regiment to Georgia though some French records indicate that he was there. “The beautiful Dillon” had been badly wounded in a sea battle off Grenada in July. For one hastens to add that those titled dandies of Old France were no mere carpet-knight warriors. In battle they were bold as lions, ready to die with their men though perhaps not always as willing to share their sufferings.

The roster of highborn officers of la Vieille France reads with the sonorous cadence of Shakespeare’s catalogue of the French chivalry at Agincourt. Besides Comte d’Estaing, Vicomte de Noailles, Comte Dillon, and the Vicomte de Fontanges, there were the Marquis de Pondevaux, a nephew of the great Vergennes; Comte d’Hervilly; Vicomte de Béthisy; Marquis de Rouvray; Comte de Villeverd; Marquis de la Roche-Fontenilles; and Baron Curt von Stedingk. One hardly passes over the last named without a word more. This handsome Swedish officer was a grandson of Frederick’s famous field marshal, von Schwerin. The close friend of King Gustave III and welcome guest at the levees of Louis XVI, Stedingk would be a special favorite of Catherine the Great in the days to come. He was to have an important role on the diplomatic stage of Europe in the years ahead.

But others in d’Estaing’s army besides these aristocrats would make names for themselves; for example, a bright-eyed, ebon-skinned boy from the West Indies by the name of Christophe. Henri had come to Georgia either as a volunteer in the colored Chasseurs from Cap François, as some say, or as the serving boy of a French officer, as others contend.⁶ Be that as it may, the time would come when this unruly youth was to wear a title greater than any of these beribboned noblemen. For Christophe would one day be King of Haiti and build the fabulous mountain citadel of Sans Souci. A dusky volunteer named Beauvais, and André Rigaud, a mulatto, were two of the several other future generals of the black revolt in San Domingo who learned their first lessons in war and freedom at Savannah.

One does not have to be discerning to detect beneath these spangles and fleurs-de-lis—behind the glitter of sounding titles and ancient names, germinations of coming revolution in France itself. High command in the French army, as in the navy, was the patrimony of the well-known and influential. Opportunity had come so easily to some of these young aristocrats—so much easier, for instance, than to Lieutenant Blandat of the Regiment d’Agénois, who was in one of the landing boats. Twice wounded during the War of the Austrian Succession and severely cut on the head by a sabre in the Seven Years’ War, Blandat had served his King faithfully for nearly thirty-five years. But he would still be a lieutenant if he served another lifetime. Perhaps, however, we should use some other example than poor Mathieu who in two weeks’ time would be lying in an unmarked grave outside Savannah, far from the hills of Franche-Comté in the land of his fathers.

Another day would dawn for France—a day when some of the youths serving in the rank and file of this French army would be found at the head of her armies. Among them were a young corporal in the Auxerrois Regiment named Jourdan, former apprentice to a silk merchant, and a strapping twenty-five-year-old private in the Hainault Regiment, one Claude Dallemagne. The time would come when Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was to be a Marshal of France and Dallemagne one of Napoleon’s bravest generals.

Privilege under the Bourbons was no wide dispensation. There were layers of French humanity into which it did not extend in any shape or form. Consider the half-naked seamen who manned these ships. Many of them had not been ashore since the squadron left Toulon. They had not been paid in months. Few could read or write. It made little difference for letters never seemed to reach either them or their homes. D’Estaing had complained to the Ministry about the delivery of mail but there was a widely-credited rumor in the fleet that all letters were ordered thrown overboard. The scurvy was bad. The skin of the sailors was “livid” and they had “the marks of death painted on their faces,” wrote a French naval officer.⁷ Masses were said and there were frequent religious processions aboard the ships. But somehow the health of the crews did not improve.

Such were the forces of King Louis XVI of France that had come to help the Americans recover Savannah.