For the long-talked-of Government expedition had really sailed, and the surmise made by Mr. Tollemache to the Marquis de Flavigny that afternoon in St. James's Park had proved entirely correct. Not only did his ship, the _Pomone_, form part of the convoying force, but she flew the flag of the commodore himself, that sterling sailor and gentleman, Sir John Borlase Warren. Under his command there had left Southampton on the sixteenth of the month a squadron comprising two seventy-fours, the _Thunderer_ and the _Robust_, and seven vessels of lesser armament, which flotilla had the task of convoying transports containing three thousand five hundred French Royalists, all kinds of stores and uniforms, muskets to the number of twenty-seven thousand, and ammunition to match. And it was in vain that the Brest fleet, under Villaret-Joyeuse, had tried to cut them off from the coast of France. As Mr. Tollemache, his telescope under his arm, thus gazed at their destination--for he understood that the landing, which the British would cover, but in which they would not participate, was to take place on the easy sands of Carnac--it occurred to him, tolerably free though he was from the curse of imagination, that the unfortunate devils of Frenchies whom they were convoying must feel rather queerish at seeing their native shores again. They were in fact crowded now on the decks of the transports, gazing at the coast through the mist and the failing daylight. M. de Flavigny, for instance, that little boy's father, he was probably there, doing the same, poor beggar . . . just like the two leaders of the expedition here on the quarterdeck of the flagship. Out of the corner of his eye the young lieutenant could see them, talking to the commodore; the strutting, self-important, irascible little man in the uniform of the troops in English pay, the Comte d'Hervilly, and the would-be organiser of the Chouannerie, the Comte de Puisaye, tall, awkward, and enigmatic. From what Francis Tollemache had seen of these individuals during the voyage he had not formed a very high opinion of their capacity. There did not seem to be much harmony between them either, and their authority was strangely divided, for d'Hervilly, who held an English commission, was supposed to be in command when the troops were at sea, and Puisaye when they were landed. For this extraordinary arrangement Mr. Tollemache had heard that My Lords of the Admiralty were to blame, and he thought the plan very foolish.