Then my heart swells, and I say to myself, as I could go on saying for ever, “There is nothing you cannot do with Frenchmen when they are once saturated with the spirit of obedience, discipline, and duty!”

CHAPTER XI

1844

I had hardly got back to Paris when I was shot on to the Admiralty Board.  A great honour it was, no doubt, for a junior like myself to be associated with such veterans in the profession as numbers among its members were.  But this gathering of experienced men was merely a body of advisers placed at the disposal of the Minister of Marine, to assist him with its counsel on any questions he chose to submit to them.  The committee possessed no initiative of its own, and I felt myself misplaced upon it.  I had indeed, and always have preserved, the deepest respect for its eminent qualities.  It has contributed not a little, by its consistent action and permanent character, to the preservation of our naval organisation—­the worth of which has been proved everywhere, in the Crimea, on the battlefields in 1870, in Tunis, and in China—­from the results of the conceited ignorance of mushroom politicians.  But in the year 1843 we were on the brink of the inevitable revolution worked in naval matters by the introduction of steam.  The great object for us was to create, and that rapidly, under pain of being outstripped by others, a new naval force, more appropriate, perhaps, than our former one, to our national genius and resources.  Passionately interested as I was in the greatness of my country, having leisure time to dispose of, since nothing called on me to plunge into the paltry bargain-making of electoral politics in which that country was wallowing, having no love of red tape nor excess of experience to hold me back, I was ardently anxious to be employed where I could actively assist in creating a powerful element in the national strength.  I therefore merely passed through the Admiralty Board.

My only recollection of it is of having been present at some very long sittings in a room in the Ministry of Marine, the windows of which look on to the Rue Royale, which apartment one of my colleagues, Admiral de Bougainville, had turned into a sort of stovehouse by means of hot-air pipes, sandbags, screens, and foot muffs.  We all nearly died of the heat, and when another colleague of mine, Baron Charles Dupin, made us long speeches, I had the greatest difficulty in keeping myself awake.

The Minister of Marine decided, at my entreaty, to appoint a special naval commission on steam, of which I was a member.  The chief commission did nothing, or scarcely anything—­but a sub-commission did good work.  There were five of us—­a captain in the navy, M. de Verninac (who was afterwards Minister of Marine under General Cavaignac); a very clever engineer, formerly Superintendent at Indret, M. Rossin; an artillery colonel, M. Durbec; M. Touchard,