then the necessity for sending a large and expensive expedition to finish up with.  A score of war-vessels, including four frigates and two bomb-vessels, were soon to be collected before Vera Cruz, with a certain number of troops to be landed, and to deal authoritatively with the Mexican Government.  Meanwhile we were to go, Captain Laine and I, to Havana, to lay in provisions, take everything we could to the squadron on board, and also, so the admiral had told me confidentially, I was to endeavour personally to get together all the plans and information possible concerning the towns on the Mexican coast and the fort of Saint Juan d’Ulloa, which had all once been Spanish.  Nothing could have suited me better than this run to Havana, where we anchored four days later, and of which place I had carried away such pleasant memories seven months before.  And as soon as I had paid and returned my official visits, I hurried to the Tacon Theatre, where, in a stage box that I knew right well, I beheld the charming woman who had begun my education as a smoker so prettily during my first visit.

We got the worst of news from Mexico.  While Admiral Baudin was hurrying thither by forced marches, as it were, the ships that had got there before us had well-nigh raised the blockade.  The frigate Herminie had started for France, which she never was to reach.  She was wrecked at the Bermudas.  The Iphigenie, which Captain de Parseval still commanded had been obliged to depart too, with nothing but a remnant of her crew, the yellow fever, which was then raging, having made terrible ravages on board.  I heard of the death of many a good friend.  Captain de Parseval had only one officer left (Kerjegu, who in later days was my colleague in the National Assembly) and one cadet, to help him to get his frigate away.  There had been a tempest too, which had done a great deal of damage to our cruisers.  I saw two come in, the Eclipse, Commander Jame de Bellecroix, and the Laurier, Captain Duquesne, which had been dismasted in the gale, and which had rigged up temporary spars, by means of which they had contrived to crawl into port.  All the sails of the Laurier had been carried away, and she was quite helpless in the storm, so her captain, Duquesne, and his second officer, Mazeres, lashed themselves on deck, after having sent the crew below.  The violence of the wind laid the ship so completely over on her beam ends that Lieutenant Mazeres, who was carried overboard by a wave, caught hold of the maintop and managed to get back on deck.  A moment later the two masts of the brig were broken by the fury of the sea, and thus she regained her balance and was saved.