A small army of soldiers was at Fort Royal, as well as De Grasse's fleet. There were between five and six thousand troops there, waiting under canvas for the order to embark on board the men-of-war. Bouille commanded them,--the Marquis de Bouille, the conqueror of St. Kitts and Nevis and Montserrat and Dominica and St. Eustatius, 'tiger-spring Bouille,'[21] though better known to fame, perhaps, for his share in the events of a later day, as Commandant-General of Metz and the 'last refuge of royalty.' Varennes, however, was a name that De Bouille, possibly, had as yet not heard of. Postmaster Drouet still rode in the ranks of the Conde dragoons. Some of the smartest corps in the French service were there: Regiment de Foix, dashing d'Armagnac, Artillerie de Metz, Regiments de Bearn, de Touraine, and de Monsieur, red-coated Irishmen of the Walsh and Dillon corps, half a battalion of Royal Contois, two battalions of Auxerrois, brought from York Town with De Grasse, after having witnessed the march out of the surrendered British army. One of the most striking of the great paintings on the walls of the _Galerie des Batailles_ at Versailles shows an aide-de-camp, a cocked-hatted, high-gaitered young dandy, garbed in Bourbon white with the mauve facings and silver lace of Auxerrois receiving orders from Washington just before the last attack. De Bouille's division had already its place on paper as one of the wings of the 'Army of Jamaica.' Now we turn to Gros Islet Bay and the British fleet. Rodney's ships lay at anchor to the south of Pigeon Island, off the north-west of St. Lucia, in the roadstead in front of Gros Islet Bay, about half-a-mile off shore, a stretch of deep water extending a mile and a half. The Gros Islet, from which the bay takes its name, was the old French name for Pigeon Island. There was also a village of the name on the shore opposite the island. Seven miles along the coast to the south was the _carenage_, where ships could be hove down and repaired; now called Castries, and an important port and naval station, destined, with the opening of the Panama Canal, to become the Valetta of the West Indies. The watering place for the fleet was at Trou Gascon in the bay.