with Brueys that all shipping of whatever kind should be forbidden to
leave Marseilles and Toulon for five days after the Armada left.
Josephine accompanied her husband as far as Toulon and, to all
appearances, was determined to travel with him all the way to Egypt.
That she did not has sometimes been attributed to her cunning and
machiavellianism, but the sequence of events strongly suggests that she
ended up staying behind by pure accident. Napoleon was fearful that he
might encounter Nelson and the Royal Navy, so arranged with Josephine
that, once he passed the coast of Sicily safely, he would send back a
courier to have her embark on a fast ship. Only four days out, he missed
her so badly that he sent back the frigate Pomone to pick her up at Naples
as agreed.
The fact that Josephine had meanwhile departed north for a spa at
Plombieres in Lorraine has made some biographers suspicious that she
never intended to go to Egypt. But the more likely explanation is simply
that Josephine was birdbrained when it came to business appointments,
punctuality or logistics and had not allowed herself enough time to get
down to Naples. Whatever the explanation, on 20 June she and two
female companions were seriously injured when a wooden balcony
collapsed under them while they stood gazing out at the street from the
first floor. Josephine was at first thought to be partially paralysed and to
have sustained severe internal injuries. She recovered only after a long
convalescence in Lorraine.
Meanwhile, after being delayed for two weeks by contrary winds, the
Egyptian armada finally stood away from Toulon on 19 May. All
unawares, the French fleet was actually in the gravest danger from the
Royal Navy, whose intelligence was first-rate despite all the French
disinformation. While Pitt ordered Nelson to re-enter the Mediterranean,
Admiral St Vincent detached three frigates from the Cadiz fleet to help
Nelson watch Toulon. Nelson was actually off Toulon on I7 May while
the French fleet was becalmed, but its departure two days later took him
by surprise. The French were able to run before the wind past the east
coast of Corsica, but when Nelson set off in pursuit on a more westerly
track he ran straight into the teeth of the gale, took severe damage and
had to put into Sardinia for repairs.
The amazingly fortunate French fleet in the meantime made rendez
vous with the Genoa squadron on 21 May and the flotilla from Ajaccio
two days later; the Civitavecchia ships were not encountered until 9 June
at Malta. For the first part of the voyage feelings ran high between the
scientists and intellectuals on the one hand and the soldiers and sailors on
the other, who treated them with amused contempt. The fault was
marcin
(Marcin)
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