After the review I was taken back to my ship.  The frigate sailed for Port Mahon, where we underwent a long quarantine, and thence to Toulon, where we arrived just as the squadron which had forced the mouth of the Tagus, under the orders of Admiral Roussin, returned, I went over those fine ships, and especially the Algesiras, with many a regret that the Arthemise had had no share in the fray.  The commander of the Algesiras, M. Moulac, a tall, strongly built, grey-headed man, the bravest of the brave, who had fought boldly in all our naval struggles with England, told me a story which impressed me deeply, and which I here transcribe just as it remains fixed in my memory:—­

“It has been blowing great guns, as you know, all the last few days.  The ship was running under easy sail when I heard a shout of ’Man overboard!’ The lifebuoy was thrown, and, looking astern, I saw the man had caught it.  But it was a raging sea—­I saw and felt that to try and lower a boat to save the poor wretch must expose the men who manned it to the greatest danger.  The crew read in my face the fearful struggle going on within me, and twenty, thirty, perhaps forty volunteers, headed by officers and midshipmen, crowded round me, beseeching me almost on their knees:  ‘Let us save our comrade, sir! we can’t desert him!’ I was weak enough to yield.  By unexpected good luck, we managed to lower a boat without accident, and she started manned by a dozen men.  We saw her, by still greater good fortune, get to the poor fellow and save him, and I was steering about so as to make it easier for her to get back, when a huge wave broke over her.  A shout of horror went up from her, and then silence.  In another minute I saw my boat capsized, on the crest of a wave, with two or three men, one of them a midshipman, clinging to the keel.  To shorten their agony, I made as though I was going ahead.  The middy understood that I was forced to abandon them, for he waved a farewell and let himself go.  I had been weak, but I was cruelly punished.  Thirteen men drowned instead of one, and by my fault!”

I shall never forget the severe expression that came over the commander’s face as he added, laying his hand on my shoulder, “Some day, boy, you may be in command.  May the thought of me remind you always that duty is inexorable!”

After this final episode in my first cruise I went ashore, but I went ashore a sailor to the core, and my one idea, when I got back to Paris, was to acquire the technical information needed for my profession.  To this the years 1832 and 1833 were devoted.  M. Guerard, a charming fellow, universally liked and an incomparable instructor, was my mathematical teacher.  A lieutenant in the navy, M. Hernoux, put me through the course of study of the Naval School.  At the same time I set assiduously to work to learn drawing.  My first master in this line was M. Barbier, the father of Jules Barbier, the poet and librettist, who, with Emile Augier, was a class-mate of my young brothers.  I did watercolours too, under an Englishman, William Callow, and oils in Gudin’s studio.  But my real master, who taught me to draw, and led and guided me, and gave me my taste for things artistic, was Ary Scheffer, with whom I remained on terms of the closest intimacy until his death.