poet Robert Browning discovered the story of a brave Breton sailor and wrote this poem concerning it. At first it was doubted whether the story was true, but a search of the records of the French navy proved that the facts described actually happened.

The events took place during the war between Louis XIV of France and William III of England in 1692. The French king was fighting the English in order to try to restore James II to his throne. Admiral Tourville, and the French fleet joined battle with the English off Cape La Hogue, and were defeated there May 31, 1692. The French ships were put to flight and headed for the old fortified seaport of St. Malo on the Brittany coast at the mouth of the river Rance.

The great fleet, sailing full in the wind, signaled to St. Malo to give them harbor or the English would take them. The pilots of St. Malo put out in their small boats and reached the fleet, but told the captains it would be impossible to steer such great vessels through the narrow channel and up the shallows of the Rance.

The French captains called a council, and were about to order their ships beached and set on fire rather than surrendered when a simple coasting-pilot, named Hervé Riel, a sailor from the Breton town of La Croisic, who had been pressed into service by Admiral Tourville, stepped out and told them he knew every turn of the channel and could take the fleet through. He asked them to let him steer the biggest ship, the Formidable, and he would save them all, or pay the price of failure with his head.

The captains gave the Breton pilot charge, and true to his word he steered the whole fleet up the Rance to safety. The English ships reached the harbor just in time to see the French escape them.

Captains and men cheered Hervé Riel, and Damfreville, in command, told him to name his own reward and, whatever it might be, he should have it. For his great service Hervé Riel simply asked for a day's holiday in order that he might go back to La Croisic to see his wife, whom he called "La Belle Aurore."

To complete his poem Browning says that there is no record of the brave sailor in his native town nor among the heroes of France who are painted in the Louvre at Paris, and offers the tribute of his verse to the daring man who saved the French fleet from the English and for reward asked to see his wife.

Browning wrote this poem at the time when Paris was besieged by the Germans in the winter of 1870—1871. He sent it to the Cornhill Magazine, saying they might have it for £100, which he would give to the fund to aid the starving people of Paris. The money was paid him, and given to help the French when the siege had ended.

by Robert Browning


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