In the port of Le Havre, Normandy, on the shores of the English Channel, two French warships ride at anchor. It is October 1800 and the ships of the Baudin expedition, the 30-gun corvette Le Géographe and the larger, ten-gun store ship Le Naturaliste, are fully equipped, each with a full complement, awaiting orders to sail.
The leader of the expedition, 46-year-old merchant marine officer and amateur naturalist Nicolas Baudin, has been commissioned by Napoleon to complete the mapping of the coast of New Holland, and to describe and collect specimens of plants and animals found there for the Paris Museum and for Josephine Bonaparte.
To that end, the ships’ combined complement of 251 officers, crew and scientists includes six zoologists, three botanists, two astronomers, a mineralogist, a geographer and a hydrographer, along with five artists and five gardeners.
To make room for all the animals and plants, extra decks have been built on each ship, making the crew quarters even more cramped than usual.
The scientists, artists and gardeners have taken aboard so much equipment – everything from chronometers to flowerpots, and thousands of books from scientific works to Shakespeare – that some cannons had to be removed. That, some officers quietly complain, is hardly a good idea in wartime, with not only the British but pirates to contend with on the high seas.
Just one zoologist’s equipment case, for example, contains 12 cork-lined insect boxes, ten pistols, bundles and coils of thread, two insect nets, about 10,000 insect pins, 400 sewing needles, 100 insect needles, one scalpel box, three pairs of dentist’s tweezers, six pairs of flat pincers, three pairs of pliers, one pair of insect tweezers, six paintbrushes, four game-bags, two elbow-shaped powder flasks, one ream of brown paper, one of white paper, and three small hammers.
At a banquet in Baudin’s honour, after music, toasts to Napoleon as the expedition’s patron, and a minute’s silence in memory of Lapérouse, a poem written especially for the occasion assures Baudin that:
You leave France today
But you take all our wishes
And already your successes
Are applauded in advance.1
The list of officers and crew includes names later immortalised on maps of Australia: Nicolas Baudin, captain of Le Géographe and expedition leader, Jacques Hamelin, captain of Le Naturaliste, surgeon Pierre Keraudren, lieutenant Louis de Freycinet and his brother Henri, and helmsman Thomas Vasse.
Contrary winds delay departure until 19 October when, just as the ships are about to sail, a latecomer appears on the dock, come to join the expedition on the recommendation of the influential scientist Antoine de Jussieu, director of the Museum of Natural History, in Paris. One of Jussieu’s students, 25-year-old François Péron, has convinced the selection committee of eminent scientists that in order to study the native peoples encountered in New Holland, the expedition ought to include an anthropologist – namely himself.
However, Péron is not an anthropologist. He is a medical school dropout with a glib tongue and a talent for self-aggrandisement. Neither is he a zoologist, yet his designated title on the expedition is that of assistant zoologist.
A poor widow’s son from Cérilly, in central France, François Péron was studying for the priesthood when the revolution reset his destiny. An ardent son of the new republic, he joined the army in 1792 when revolutionary France declared war on Austria. At the Battle of Kaiserslautern – a crushing defeat for the French – he was wounded, losing an eye, and was made a prisoner of war.
During months of captivity in Magdeburg fortress, Péron passed the time reading ripping yarns – accounts of expeditions to the farthest corners of the map. He, like many in that golden age of exploration, was fascinated by the exploits of Cook, Bligh, Vancouver, Bougainville, Lapérouse and other famous adventurers.
In 1794, released from prison and invalided out of the army because of his wounds, Péron attended medical school in Paris but after three years abandoned his studies to pursue an interest in the science du jour, natural history. It was during this time that he studied under, and presumably impressed, Professor Jussieu.
And so here he is, this brash young man, boarding Le Géographe on the adventure of a lifetime, to serve under a captain who seems to have taken an instant dislike to him.
It may be that Captain Baudin, dour and insular, resents having had no say in the appointment of François Péron, or perhaps it’s because he could hardly complain since he, too, was recommended by Professor Jussieu. Certainly, the stage is set for a monumental clash of personalities. Most of the officers, sailors and scientists aboard Le Géographe seem to find the last-minute recruit agreeable and charming, yet over the course of the voyage the captain’s dislike of Péron will fester into outright hatred, and the feeling will be mutual.
Of the 24 scientists, artists and artisans who set sail from France, ten will die or abandon the expedition due to illness before the ships reach New Holland. Only six will make it home to France, sailors will jump ship at every port, and the crew will blame the captain’s intransigence and incompetence for their cursed luck. The captain, for his part, will declare François Péron a Jonah – a harbinger of misfortune, according to seafarers’ superstition – as well as a liar, a fraud and a fomenter of mutiny.
Talk about getting off to a bad start. A merchant’s son who began his career as a cabin boy in the merchant marine, the captain is of low birth. He is in command of high-born naval officers – scions of old and influential families, such as the Freycinet brothers – who resent being subordinate to a commoner. That, and overcrowding due to limited cabin space, ensured that rumblings of discontent begin even before the ships set sail.
On the morning of 19 October, Le Géographe and Le
Naturaliste put into the Channel and head due south, farewelled by a military band, a salute from the fort’s guns, and by waving, cheering crowds shouting ‘Vive la République!’, all blissfully unaware that many of the departing adventurers do not share their joy.
On a course to Tenerife in the Canaries – the expedition’s first port of call – the scientists, and Péron in particular, are becoming increasingly aware that Captain Baudin can barely contain his contempt for them, for reasons known only to himself, while rough seas add mal de mer to their miseries. The officers and crew, meanwhile, soon discover that Baudin is somewhat of a bully – unreasonable, spiteful and subject to black moods. They are unaware, for the time being at least, that his volatile temperament is in part a reflection of his state of health. Nicolas Baudin suffers from one of the most virulent and feared diseases of the age. Some call it consumption or phthisis, others the white plague. Later generations will know it as pulmonary tuberculosis.
Tenerife is a welcome sight from the decks of the French ships after almost a month at sea, and on Le Géographe there are hopes that shore leave in the Spanish port might ease the friction aboard. It doesn’t.
The sailors head straight for the whorehouses, to return ten days later riddled with venereal disease and itching from scabies. The officers and scientists ramp up their protests against overcrowding and add poor-quality food to their list of complaints. Henri de Freycinet sparks outrage by inviting a prostitute to dine at the captain’s table. And the Spanish authorities delay the ships’ departure with claims that deserters from the garrison have been smuggled on board. A search of both vessels finds nothing, and the ships are cleared to depart. But later that day, out at sea, four deserters are found on board Le Naturaliste. Returning them to port means a further delay.
Weeks behind schedule – he had planned to reach Isle de France (Mauritius) in the Indian Ocean by February – Baudin hopes to make up for lost time by charting a course along the West African coast rather than the usual south-westerly course. The West African coast route, though shorter, risks storms, tricky currents and doldrums, and Baudin’s officers, who have little faith in his seamanship, and whose advice he ignores, believe his decision is ill-considered.
Their concerns are confirmed by two weeks becalmed in the doldrums, sweltering in the tropical heat, followed by days of violent storms, until at last the weather clears, wind fills the sails and the voyage continues. Tempers have now frayed to near breaking point, and there are whispers below deck that some officers and scientists intend to desert when the ships reach Isle de France.