She Was
Detained There From May 27 Till June 6, When The Admiralty, Being
Informed Of What Had Occurred, Ordered Her Immediate Release.
She left
Portsmouth and arrived at Havre on the same day, June 6, 1803.
Perhaps nothing can convey more effectually the utter weariness and
depression of officers, staff, and crew, than the language in which
Freycinet chronicled the return. It might be supposed, he wrote, that the
end of the voyage would be heralded with joy. But they were themselves
surprised to find that they were but slightly touched with pleasure at
seeing again the shores of their own country after so long an absence.
"It might be said that the very sight of our ship, recalling too strongly
the sufferings of which we had been the victims, poisoned all our
affections. It was not until we were far away from the coast that our
souls could expand to sentiments of happiness which had been so long
strangers to us."
This, surely, was not the language of men who believed that they had
accomplished things for which the world would hold them in honour. It was
not the language of triumphant discoverers, whose good fortune it had
been to reveal unknown coasts, and to finish that complete map of the
continents which had been so long a-making. Would it, one wonders, have
made Freycinet a little happier had he known that at this very time the
English navigator who had made the discoveries for which Baudin's
expedition was sent out, was held in the clutch of General Decaen in
Mauritius, and that the way was clear to hurry on the publication of
forestalling maps and records whilst Flinders was, as it were, battened
under hatches?
CHAPTER 11. RESULTS.
Establishment of the First Empire.
Reluctance of the French Government to publish a record of the
expedition.
Report of the Institute.
The official history of the voyage authorised.
Peron's scientific work.
His discovery of Pyrosoma atlanticum.
Other scientific memoirs.
His views on the modification of species.
Geographical results.
Freycinet's charts.
Startling changes in the political complexion of France had occurred
during the absence of the expedition. Citizen Bonaparte, who in May 1800
had concurred in the representations of the Institute that discovery in
southern regions would redound to the glory of the nation, had since
given rein to the conception that the glory of France meant, properly
interpreted, his own.* (* It was so from the beginning of his career as
Consul, according to M. Paul Brosses' interpretation of his character.
"Il est deja et sera de plus en plus convaincu que travailler a sa
grandeur, c'est travailler a la grandeur du pays." Consulat et Empire,
1907 page 27.) He meant to found a dynasty, and woe to those whom he
regarded as standing in his way. One of the first pieces of news that
those who landed from Le Geographe at Lorient on the 25th March would
hear, was that just four days before, the Duc d'Enghien, son of the Duc
de Bourbon, had been shot after an official examination so formal as to
be no better than a mockery, for his grave had actually been dug before
the inquiry commenced.
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