With most naval battles we can afford to treat the sea as an open plain needing no description. But this is not the case with the battle of Quiberon. The lie of the land is as necessary to be kept in mind as the shape of the country is for the proper understanding of Oudenarde or Salamanca. It has been said above that while Conflans lay blockaded at Brest, the troops for the invasion of England were collected at Vannes, in the Morbihan, on the south side of the Breton Peninsula. From the Pointe de Penmarch, the south-westerly headland of Finisterre, the coast runs to the east, but with a slope to the south, till it reaches the entry of the river Vilaine. Here it turns wholly to the south, and stretches down to the Pyrenees and the coast of Biscay. It is mostly foul on the southern side of Brittany, and fringed with islands. At two-thirds or so of the distance from the Pointe de Penmarch to the mouth of the Vilaine, the peninsula of Quiberon juts out to the south, in shape something like a lobster’s claw with its hook turned to the east. On the eastern side is the bay of Quiberon. The anchorage is fine where the bottom of sand mud and shells is free from rocks, but in many places it is foul, and of its total breadth of nine miles, only five or six are really safe for large vessels. Following the line of the mainland on the north side, we reach the entry to the tangle of islands, deep passages, shallows, and lagoons named the Morbihan, to the north of which is the town of Vannes. In this refuge the transports had been collected to wait till the fleet came round from Brest and secured them a safe passage to the sea. The Morbihan is closed on the south side by the peninsula of Rhuis. The coast goes eastward from Rhuis to the Vilaine, and then runs south in a rolling line to the Pointe de Croisic, at the northern side of the Loire, beyond which it need not now be followed. The peninsula of Quiberon, the entry to the Vilaine, and the Pointe de Croisic form roughly a right angle. Now draw a line from Croisic to the Pointe de Conguel on the north-west, which is the southern extremity of the peninsula of Quiberon. All along that line, with openings of clear water here and there, are piled the perils of the Breton coast, innumerable and thrown together in inextricable confusion. In front of Croisic and at low tide a number of black rocks at distances of from three and a half to five and a half miles show the position of the mass of sunken reef called the Plateau du Four. To the west of the Four there is an open passage closed on the outer side by the rocks called the Grands Cardinaux. From them stretches to the north-west an unbroken column of islands and rocks, separated from the Pointe de Conguel by the passage known as La Teignouse. The approach to this is made perilous on the west by the Plateau de Mirvideaux. To the south and west of the small islands between Les Grands Cardinaux and La Teignouse lies the Fair Island, Belleisle.