The sea which I was to behold upon so many coasts bathed, at Brest, the extremity of the Armorican Peninsula: beyond that prominent cape lay nothing but the boundless ocean and unknown worlds. My imagination revealed in all this space. Often, seated on some mast lying along the Quai de Recouvrance, I watched the movements of the crowd: shipwrights, sailors, soldiers, custom-house officers, convicts passed to and fro before my eyes. Passengers embarked and disembarked, pilots directed the steering, carpenters squared blocks of wood, cordwainers twisted hawsers, ship's boys lit fires under coppers from which issued a thick smoke and the healthy smell of tar. Bales of merchandise, sacks of victuals were carried to and from the quay; trains of artillery were rolled from the sea to the magazines, from the magazines to the sea. Here, carts were pushed backwards into the water to receive cargoes; there, loads were hoisted with tackle, while cranes lowered stones and dredging-machines dug out the alluvium. Forts fired signals, ships' boats came and went, vessels set sail or returned to harbor. My mind became filled with vague ideas on society, its blessings and its evils. An indefinite sadness overtook me; I left the mast on which I was sitting, walked up the Penfeld, which runs into the port, and reached a turn where the port disappeared from view. Here, with nothing before me except a turfy valley, but with the confused murmur of the sea and human voices still in my ears, I lay down upon the bank of the little river. Watching by turns the rippling of the water and the flight of the sea-mew, enjoying the silence around me or listening to the strokes of the calker's hammer, I fell into the deepest musing. In the midst of this reverie, if the wind carried to me the sound of the gun of a ship leaving port, I started, and tears moistened my eyes. One day I had walked in the direction of the outer extremity of the harbor, to the side of the sea: it was warm; I lay down upon the beach and fell asleep. Suddenly I was awakened by a grand noise; I opened my eyes like Augustus to see the triremes in the anchorage of Sicily after the victory over Sextus Pompey: reports of artillery followed one upon the other; the roads were crowded with men-of-war; the great French squadron was returning after the signing of peace[142]. The ships manœuvred under full sail, bathed themselves in flame, hoisted ensigns, turned their poops, bows, broadsides towards the shore, stopped short by dropping anchor while still under sail, or continued to skim over the billows. Nothing ever gave me a higher idea of the human intelligence: man seemed at that moment to borrow something from Him who said to the sea, "Thus far shalt thou go and no further."