Baudin's expedition was ready to sail from Havre at the end of September, but was delayed by contrary winds. The delay was considered by a friendly contemporary to be fortunate, in that it enabled the officers and scientific staff to become friendly, so that the most perfect harmony existed amongst them.* (* Moniteur, 29th Vendemiaire, Revolutionary Year 8 (1800).) French readers of the official organ of the Government were also assured that everybody on the two ships had merited confidence in the talent of the chiefs; in which case their disappointment with later developments must have been all the more profound. The public and the journals took a lively interest in the enterprise; and the author of one of the world's great stories, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, from his experience of tropical life in the island where Paul and Virginia lived and loved, lectured at the Institute on the dietetic regime which ought to be observed by Captain Baudin and his men.* (* Moniteur, 16th Vendemiaire.) But however valuable his advice may have been, it was sadly disregarded. A livelier function was a banquet given to Baudin at the Hotel de la Rochefoucauld, in Paris, on the 7th Fructidor, by the Societe de l'Afrique Interieure. It was attended by several leading members of the Institute, and an account of it was accorded over a column of space in the Moniteur.* (* 22nd Fructidor.) Baudin was seated between Bougainville and Vaillant, an African traveller. There was music, and song, and a long toast list, with many eloquent speeches. Baudin submitted the toast of Bonaparte, "First Consul of the French Republic and protector of the expedition"; Jussieu proposed the progress of the sciences; the company drank to the "amelioration of the lot of savage races, and may their civilisation result from the visit which the French are about to pay to them"; and the immortal memory of La Perouse was honoured in silence. The last toast appropriately expressed the wish that the whole company might reassemble in the same place on the return of the expedition, "inspired by the purest zeal for the progress of the sciences and of enlightenment." A short poem was also recited, which it is worth while to rescue from the inaccessibility of the Moniteur file:-- "Vous quittez aujourd'hui la France Mais vous emportez tous nos voeux, Et deja vos succes heureux Partout sont applaudis d'avance. Sur le coeur de tous les mortels Votre gloire a jamais se fonde, Il n'est pas de pays au monde Ou le savoir n'ait des autels." The poet who thus applauded success in advance, probably lived long enough to realise that it is much easier to make fair verses than a true prediction.