He hastened to the quarters of M. Thevenard, the commandant of the port, and by his personal interposition, prevented him from opening fire upon the Alliance. He wrote to Dr. Franklin: “Thevenard had received orders to fire on the Alliance and sink her to the bottom, if they attempted to approach and pass the barrier that had been made across the entrance to the port. Had I even remained silent an hour the dreadful work would have been done. Your humanity will, I know, justify the part I acted, in preventing a scene that would have rendered me miserable for the rest of my life. Yesterday the within letter was brought me from Mr. Lee. He has pulled off the mask, and I am convinced is not a little disappointed that his operations have produced no bloodshed between the subjects of France and America. Poor man!” The commandant of the port called all his officers together, and they signed a paper, minutely stating the preparations they had made to render the departure of the Alliance impossible, and their great admiration of the magnanimity of Commodore Jones in causing their operations to be suspended. Landais, unopposed, warped his ship through the mouth of the harbor and cast anchor in the roadstead of Groix. We must now take leave of Landais, with but a brief record of his subsequent career. Pierre Landais was the youngest son of one of the proudest and, in rank, one of the most illustrious families in Normandy. Their ancestral estates had gradually passed away, and the family had become impoverished, but not the less proud. Pierre entered the Naval School, and was thoroughly instructed in the theory both of building and navigating a ship. He, however, found it difficult to get a commission so as to put his knowledge into practice. He had neither money, nor interest at court, with which to purchase court favor. He was thus kept a mere midshipman until he was thirty-two years of age. Then for many years he remained in the humble situation of a sub-lieutenant. He was serving in this capacity, greatly discontented with his lot, when the war broke out between England and her American colonies. Landais then came to this country in command of a French merchant-ship laden with public stores. He was a man of much address and of boundless assurance. According to his representation he enjoyed the rank of captain in the royal navy; had commanded a ship of the line; had been chief officer of the naval depot at the port of Brest, and could have commanded any advancement he desired in his own country. But he said that his love for freedom was such, and such his admiration of the heroism of the Americans in drawing the sword in defence of popular rights, against such a gigantic power as that of Great Britain, that he had declined receiving the Cross of St. Louis, and had abjured the Roman Catholic religion, the religion of his forefathers, that he might, with all his energies, enter into the service of America.