There had been another collision in the French fleet. The hapless _Zele_, whose earlier misfortunes had been the cause of De Grasse turning back on Thursday afternoon, had during the previous night had a second collision. While tacking shortly after midnight, she had blundered clumsily into the _Ville de Paris_ with disastrous consequences. In her present state the _Zele_ was a danger to his fleet, and De Grasse told off La Perouse of the _Astree_ to tow the crippled ship off at once into Basse Terre. It proved, though, for one reason and another, not so easy a thing to do in the dark, and the first streaks of dawn were showing before the towing-cable had been got across. After that, when at length the two moved away they crawled off dead slow, making barely five knots. All the time, ever since midnight, the wind and set of the tide had been carrying not only the _Zele_ and the _Astree_, but also the _Ville de Paris_ and the half-dozen ships with her that were standing by, steadily to leeward, away from the main body of the French fleet, and ever nearer to the course on which Rodney, in the dark, all unknown to De Grasse, was fast approaching. The French had entirely lost touch with Rodney since sunset, owing to his having put out his lights. From the _Formidable's_ quarter-deck Rodney marked the situation of the _Zele_. He saw what it meant. A flutter of signal-flags broke overhead, and within two minutes four of Hood's smartest ships--the _Monarch_, _Valiant_, _Centaur_, and the _Belliqueux_--were sweeping out of the line with all sail set, heading straight for the _Zele_ and the frigate. De Grasse saw it. To lose the _Zele_ like that would be a personal disgrace; but that was not all the mischief. The great De Bouille himself, Commander-in-Chief of the French army, was on board the _Astree_. It was terribly awkward. De Grasse at once signalled to his fleet in the distance to make all sail and close on the _Ville de Paris_, forming line on the port tack.[30] He himself meanwhile with the ships nearest him bore down towards the British four to frighten them off. That was just the false step that Rodney wanted him to take--the outcome of "an impulse of hasty unbalanced judgment."[31] By another move he might have forced Rodney to recall his chasers before they could reach the _Zele_, at the same time also keeping the weather-gage for himself. By hurrying down under sail ahead of his fleet De Grasse not only delayed the formation of his line, as his ships had the farther to go to reach their stations, but he also carried his fleet bodily to leeward and within Rodney's reach. A worse blunder still was the forming line on the port tack--the opposite to that on which Rodney was standing. By continuing on the port tack, the French, after the first exchange of fire in the open channel, could not help running into the belt of calms and variable airs off the coast of Dominica, which would render further manoeuvring on their part impossible.