Régulus caves at Meschers sur Gironde

Historical background

Early in 1814, the 6th coalition, made up of Great Britain, Russia and Prussia, invaded southern France. France's borders were threatened. In April 1814, Napoleon abdicated.

The Regulus, led by Captain Regnault, anchors at Le Verdon. She is escorted by three brigs, the Java, the Malais and the Sans-Souci.

Account of the days leading up to the scuttling

"Since March 21, Rear Admiral Penrose has been master of the estuary; he was able to enter it, thanks, it is said, to the complicity of pilots - which is not certain - with the 82-gun Egmont, three frigates, three brigs, a bombard and a cutter. He first anchored inside the banc des marguerites; from there, he cannoned and bombarded the Regulus and the three brigs, sheltered behind the banc de Talmond, which covers the Meschers anchorage. He sailed back to Pauillac, leaving two galiotes with bombs, which started firing at eight o'clock in the evening.

"From March 21 to April 6 (1814), the four ships were relentlessly the target of English bombers, while our guns, firing with full force, could only rarely reach the enemy. Admittedly, the damage was not what the English had hoped for. Only one bomb, the first of all, hit the target in full, falling on the deck of the Régulus and covering it with shrapnel. The others were almost harmless, and the Guards sailors, who had seen many others, had become accustomed to living in the shelter of the rope bridge that had been stretched over the Gaillards deck.

Scuttling the Regulus

Nevertheless, the situation on the Régulus was hopeless, with the English holding both the sea and the river. On April 6, the day after the Emperor's abdication, Captain Regnault carried out his instructions: above all, not to fall into enemy hands. He gave the order to set fire to the three brigs.

At six o'clock in the evening, he himself had his gunpowder thrown into the sea. At precisely eleven o'clock, showing his hand, he was said to be the last to leave his ship, after making sure that the last of his men had left, that the fire he had had set forward and aft had taken hold, and setting fire to the heap of incendiary materials he had had placed at the foot of the mainmast.

This story is said to be an 1832 account by Primevère Lesson, a French surgeon, naturalist, zoologist and ornithologist, who was born in Rochefort on March 21, 1794 and died on April 28, 1849. The text was published in 1934.

The fire - opposite the Regulus caves

The story continues: "The ship burned all night: its masts were huge torches; the flames came out of the ports; the heat of the inferno reached the shore. It was a hellish sight. Suddenly, the cannons, which had remained loaded, spewed out their shrapnel with a tremendous bang. A cannonball blew the roof off a house in the village of Meschers, where Lesson and some twenty sailors had taken refuge. On the morning of April 7, four blackened, unrecognizable carcasses, having burned their cables, were swept away by the current and grounded on the sandbanks."