Note 179 — BOOK XIV[162]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
On the 5th of May 1830, the Duc d'Angoulême held a review at Toulon of the fleet which was about to set sail for Algiers. It consisted of 675 men-of-war and merchant-ships, including no less than 11 battle-ships, 24 frigates and 70 war-ships of lesser strength. This day represented Fortune's last smile upon the House of Bourbon, which found France exhausted, impoverished, crushed beneath the weight of unutterable disasters and was about to leave her free, prosperous and powerful, with admirable finances and a superb fleet; which found her vanquished, humiliated, trodden under foot by four hundred thousand invaders and was about to bequeath to her the surest and fairest of all conquests, accomplished under the eyes and despite the threats of trembling England.—B.