1679 - Pierre Arnoul Ousted

A distinguished naval administrator, Pierre Arnoul, aged 28, is held responsible for a shipwreck so ousted from his prominent position to the Mediterranean fleet.

Encountering a heavy gale in the approaches of Belle-Île while sailing towards Brest, a flottilla of four vessels drifted to the shoals. Two vessels, the 70-gun Sans-Pareil (1667) and the 72-gun Conquérant (1666) grounded on reefs and foundered. Eight hundreds sailors drowned with them. A third ship, the 58-gun Content (1672) ran aground but on sand banks and she has been refloated later.

A small fraction of the crew of Sans-Pareil was rescued by the 40-gun Arc-en-Ciel (1678), thanks to the boats despatched by the two captains – a fraction only because most of sailors cannot swim and did not dare to board the rescue boat in the high waves, although they were summoned to do so to save their lives. As for the Conquérant, it seems that she sunk at once with all hands.

A year after the disaster of Las Alves, this new misfortune makes anger arise. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, 60 years old, Secretary-of-State for the Navy, needs and seeks a scapegoat. He has no reason and no envy of incriminating the captain of Sans-Pareil, Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, knight of Tourville, 35 years old, who did his utmost from all reports. Tourville left the ship at the last moment after having attempted to organise rescue of his crew. He did not drown himself as he can swim – an uncommon ability which may save a life. This is the second time in Tourville’s career that he saves his life by swimming.

Abraham Duquesne, 69 years old, the famous admiral victorious of Ruyter three years ago, in charge of the inquiry, points out the weakness of the hull despite a refit the previous year at the Toulon dockyard. It is not that clear. He reports that the masts fell first, one after another, the bowsprit, then the foremast and finally the mainmast with fatal damage to the hull which nevertheless took a full day to founder. Would a new hull have withstood the ordeal ?

Colbert therefore turns to a prominent subordinate of him, Pierre Arnoul, naval administrator for the fleet of Levant and responsible for the Toulon dockyard, efficient though1, and moreover a close friend of his son, Jean-Baptiste II Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay. Arnoul is sacked as responsible for the refit carried out in Toulon and alleged as defective.

¤ At 21, he was already appointed for a crucial survey into Dutch dockyards. He came back with the idea of introducing windmills to saw framework pieces, an industrial tooling which he effectively implemented in Toulon when he took charge of the harbour.

It is worth noticing that there is no dry dock in Toulon dockyard – anyway it would be difficult to set a dry dock in a tideless sea – and that the infrastructures are far from being sufficient for a Mediterranean fleet which counts no less than thirty ships of the line.

¤ Colbert’s work has been prodigious but the number of vessels is a trompe l’oeil. The fleet grew too fast for the French port capacities, for the French industrial capacities and for the number of French seafarers available. It will take some time to put everything in harmonious terms.

Several projects were dismissed as too costly from 1669 to today. The disaster provokes the despatch to Toulon of Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, 46 years old, engineer, expert in the art of siege and in fortifications, famous for the siege of Maastricht (1673), to look into this issue.

The question of sustainability is even accented by this trend, in France as in England, of scantily allocating money for maintaining the ships. Funds are raised when a war threatens to break out. Otherwise, this item is neglected and the ships are sentenced to decay.

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LINKS WITH PREVIOUS CHRONICLES

1670 - Enlistment of the Seafarers

1673 - Care of the Disabled Mariners

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IN RETROSPECT FROM TODAY

NOTE - About Arnoul’s fate.

He is reintegrated as early as 1680 but his further positions will be less distinguished than the one he lost – i.e. Le Havre then Rochefort. Afterwards he takes charge of a key department, seafarer administration, i.e. the welfare system established by Colbert to assure crews to warships from enlisted seafarers from the merchant navy and fishermen. The problem of manning warships, which has already been critical during the Franco-Dutch war, will become increasingly knotty and impossible to settle from 1685 as many Huguenot seafarers have started to flee and will carry on fleeing during the Nine Years war.

NOTE B - About port equipment, especially dry docks.

The first dry dock in France was built at Rochefort in 1671. The second is built in Brest in 1687. And the first one built in Toulon dockyard is completed in 1778.