7/5/1816 - One of the great maritime tragedies of The Age of Sail takes place off the western coast of Africa, when the Napoleonic frigate, Medusa, bound for the port of Saint-Louis to formally re-establish the French occupation of the colony of Senegal based on the terms of the First Peace of Paris, runs aground on a sandbank in the Bay of Arguin, thirty-one miles from present-day Mauritania thanks to the inept captaincy of political appointee Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, and becomes a total loss.
The Raft Of The Medusa
Keel laid down on June 24, 1806, by the Crucy shipyard of Paimboeuf, the frigate, Medusa, is commissioned into the naval service of France at the French port of Nantes on September 26, 1807. Build work completed with the warship's launching on July 1, 1810, as Napoleon Bonaparte is dealing with a Fifth Coalition of European governments upset with his rule (the Fifth Coalition consists of Great Britain, Austria, Sardinia, and Sicily), the Medusa displaces 1,080 tons, has a length of 154 feet, a beam of 39 feet and one inch, a draught of 19 feet and four inches, and is propelled over the waves by 21,000 square feet of canvas sails. As a fighting craft during normal operations, she carries a battery of 28 eighteen-pound cannons, 8 eight pound long guns, and 8 thirty-six-pound carronades. In 1811, the frigate sees military action for the first time as part of a frigate division patrolling off the island of Java that is commanded by Admiral Joseph-Francois Raoul. As such, partnered with the frigate, Nymphe, she helps chase the British frigates, HMS Bucephalus and HMS Barracouta out of the area in September and is back in her home port of Brest by December. Patrolling the Atlantic, partnered once again with Nymphe, at the close of 1813, the frigate captures the British merchant ships Prince George, Lady Caroline Barham, and Postdam (all out of London and bound for Jamaica), Flora (from London bound for Martinique), Brazil Packet (headed to Brazil from Madeira), and Rosario and Thetis (out of Cape Verde). Bonaparte defeated at Waterloo in 1815 (there are rumors that the vessel has been selected to secret Napoleon away from France following the defeat) and King Louis XVIII restored to the throne of France, believing he is owed a command based on years of loyalty to the crown, the King appoints Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys to command of Medusa, even though the Viscount has not been to sea in 25 years (based almost entirely on a failed 1795 plot to start an insurrection of royalists along the French coastline that gets Chaumareys captured and almost hung, but provides the skeleton of a best selling publication about the affair).
Medusa In Foreground
Gun Deck
Afterdeck
King Louis XVIII
On June 17, 1816, with Chaumareys at the helm (and his mistress in his cabin), the Medusa sets sail out of Rochefort, France as the command ship of a small fleet of vessels (the cargo ship, Loire, the brig, Argus, formerly the HMS Plumper before it was wrested from the English, and the corvette, Echo) bound for the port of Saint-Louis, tasked with taking over the African colony of Senegal from the British as part of the terms of the Peace Treaty of Paris. Modified "en flute" to designate a warship with reduced armaments for the transport duty it has been assigned, the Medusa carries a mixture of 400 soldiers, sailors, and colonists (there are 166 individuals in the crew, 10 men that man the frigate's reduced artillery, 161 soldiers of two companies of the Africa Battalion, a handful of soldiers' wives, and 61 passengers that includes the newly appointed French governor of Senegal, Colonel Julien-Desire Schmaltz, the colonel's wife, Reine Schmaltz, the governor's personal secretary, Joseph Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Griffon du Bellay, and a philosopher and member of the Philanthropic Society of Cape Verde named Antoine Richefort). Along with supplies deemed necessary for starting a colony, the Medusa also carries three casks containing 90,000 francs in coins. The northwestern coast of Africa one of the most dangerous places in the world (the area, both sea lanes and landfall, is poorly mapped and ashore, filled with Moorish inhabitants willing to sell heathen strangers into slavery), orders for the squadron are to mutually support each other by remaining within sight of the other members of the fleet. It is a policy that works until the four ships arrive at the Portuguese island of Madeira on June 27, and Chaumareys begins to listen intently to the Siren chirping of the governor to get him to Senegal as quick as possible by the most direct route available to beat the colony's rainy season and be able to harvest a bountiful crop of gum. Held in disdain by officers with more experience that still support Bonaparte (it does not help that a man is lost overboard and the frigate almost runs aground leaving France), the captain also listens to Antoine Richefort on matters of navigation and orders his men to do the same.
Chaumareys
By the time Medusa reaches the Spanish island of Tenerife and stops briefly for supplies, the frigate has only the Echo as an escort, the only ship in the squadron that can keep up with Chaumareys' speed (the other vessels have made their way further out into the Atlantic to avoid the navigational hazards along the coastline, as will Echo on the night of 7/1 when it loses sight of Medusa). Taking a break from the oppressive heat of summer combining with the hot winds blowing west from the Sahara desert, and worries about where the rest of the squadron has gone, on the first day of July the ritual festivities that take place upon crossing the Tropic of Cancer take place aboard Medusa ... festivities that come to an abrupt close when Ensign Pierre-Joseph Lapayere, the officer of the watch, seeing the frigate is way too close to the African coastline (the ship is now in an area that has eaten at least thirty ships from different nations in a quarter of a century), on his own accord, changes course and takes Medusa further out to sea, starting off a set of arguments between individuals aboard the vessel about how the Medusa is being sailed (throwing an officer in the brig for challenging the competence of Richefort only contributes to the highly volatile conditions aboard the frigate as does the "navigators" continued insistence that the ship has 80 fathoms below its keel), and with good cause ... because Chaumareys and Richefort have misidentified a bank of clouds in the distance as being Cape Blanco and Medusa is more than 100 miles off course and running through waters that become shallower and shallower as the color of the sea changes from deep blue to green, kelp can be seen floating on the surface of the water, the breakers become white, mud and sand show in the wet, and there appear to be shoals of fish everywhere. Concerned, on their own accord when they take over the midday watch, Ensign Joseph-Michel Maudet and Midshipman Sander Rang begin making soundings which are decidedly shallower than 80 fathoms. Finally concerned when a depth of only eighteen fathoms is reported, Chaumareys leaves the comforts of his cabin for the deck and begins calling out course changes ... steering a quarter to starboard the new sounding reads ten fathoms, a change in course of two quarters to starboard makes the new depth six fathoms. Before Chaumareys can make another adjustment though, a gust of wind hits the Medusa's sails and there is a shutter, a scrape, and then a loud roar as the frigate grinds to a sudden stop, caught on a sandbar of the Bank of Arguin.
Line Crossing Ceremony
Aground
The Ship's Carpenter
The Raft
Wrecked
The powerful and rich saving themselves first, the tow boats, many not fully filled, lash on to raft, which in the hurry to leave and with the lack of leadership present, has put to sea with only two containers of water, six tubs of wine, and a twenty-five-pound sack of sea soaked biscuits. Dividing the survivors into three parties, 146 men (mostly soldiers) and one women board the unstable raft (with the first 40 aboard the platform in certain places sinks two feet below the Atlantic and by the time everyone is on there are no dry places and movement of the traveling party is severely hampered), 236 individuals get into the tow vessels, and 17 harried souls decide to stay on Medusa and await a better method of rescue. Breaking promises made, the raft a barely moving anchor for the longboat survivors trying to tow it to shore, with many rafters attempting to swim to the longboats that would be swamped by their presence, Chaumareys and Schmaltz order the tow ropes to be cut, and by 11:00 a.m, the raft is abandoned and the longboats make for shore.
Abandoning Ship
After a cold, wet, sleepless night in which every wave seems intent on swamping his longboat, 2nd Lt. Espiaux puts 57 souls ashore, under the command of Lt. Anglas de Praviel, at Cape Mirick and the group begins a sixteen day zig-zagging march south across beaches and dunes that includes a corporal's wife dying from exhaustion, castaways being burnt up by the sun to the point where many request their comrades kill them to alleviate their pains (a group that includes de Praviel himself), thirst is sometimes is slacked by drinking blood, they are captured by Moors, then taken from that group by a bigger tribe of Moors, then receive succor from a Irishman living in the area named Kearney, a rendezvous with the Argus (not seen since the fleet was together in the Bay of Biscay, the vessel has successfully navigated south to Saint-Louis and is now in the process of searching the coast for Medusa) that gets the castaways sustenance in the form of biscuits and bottles of brandy (after a dangerous swim through the surf out to the vessel and back by Kearney and two of his Moorish friends) before arriving at the small village of Guet N'Dar on the banks of the Senegal River, by which time the group of castaways is known as "The Tattered Band." A similar "tattered band" from Medusa also makes its way south. This group loses a man who has both his legs smashed to pieces coming ashore, captures crabs for moisture and meat, buys goat's milk, two kids (they are both devoured before being fully cooked), fresh water, butter, camel's milk and millet from a group of Moors, loses two men chasing mirages when they wander off into the desert, hires another group of Moors to serve as guides using donkeys for transport, also makes contact with the Argus and come away from the hasty meeting offshore with three barrels of supplies that includes wine, Dutch cheese, brandy, and more biscuits, and also receive help from Kearney in the form of an ox that gets barbequed and devoured. Furnace-like heat a constant except in the early hours of dawn, after three days in the longboats and a five-day desert slog, the group finally arrives in Saint-Louis at 6:00 in the evening of July 13 having endured an experience all of the survivors will remember the rest of their lives (by contrast, the thirty-six people granted passage aboard Governor Schmaltz's barge and the twenty-eight individuals with Captain Chaumareys share over fifty pounds of biscuits, eighteen bottles of wine, seventy-eight bottles of water, two bottles of brandy, a dozen bottles of Madeira, and a small batch of overripe pears, and are rescued from the sea by the Echo on the evening of July 8).
Dunes And Ocean
Saint-Louis
The ordeal of the marching castaways however is nothing compared to the absolute hell the members of the abandoned raft experience. A diverse group, the damned and doomed of "la machine" include twenty sailors (the senior member of this group is Midshipman Jean-Daniel Coudein), a butcher, a baker, an armorer, two artillery officers and a master cannoneer, a barrel maker, a helmsman servants of the senior officers of Medusa, members of the Philanthropic Society, Africa Battalion soldiers from Italy, Arabia, Guadeloupe, San Domingo, Asia, India, Poland, Ireland, and America, Dr. Henri Savigny, geographical engineer Alexandre Correard, and the governor's secretary, Jean Griffon du Bellay. Many submerged to the waist in water, the rafters are first depressed at the situation they find themselves in as Medusa's longboats disappear over the horizon, the mood aboard the unstable platform soon turns to intense anger and shouts for vengeance, that grow even more intense when it is discovered they have been set adrift without a compass, charts, or an anchor. Objects of justified ire gone however, the raft's company soon turns the anger they are feeling on themselves (a first day meal of sodden biscuits results in there being no more food after the first day). Buffeted by waves and salt spray, after a pitch black first evening of wondering if daylight will ever come, the raft's occupants wake up to discover there numbers have been reduced by about a dozen people who have vanished (among the first suicides are a baker and his two apprentices who simply hurl themselves into the sea). Caught in a gale complete with monster waves, trying to stay in the center of the platform, rafters are trampled to death or lose their holds and are swept away, but the fight for their survival grows bloody when a group of terrified soldiers, believing they are about to die, decide to get hammered before going and break into a wine cask lashed to the center of the raft. Bombed, the group crazily begins smashing up the raft and slaughtering fellow passengers, who in kind, fight back with swords, knives, bayonets, wooden clubs and their fists (the sole woman aboard is pitched into the sea, but then rescued). Finally the riot ends and individuals try to make it through the night and to a third day aboard the raft. Platform turned into an abattoir, dawn of the third reveals a deck covered with gore and the corpses of sixty people who have been murdered, killed in the fighting, or have committed suicide ... and making matters even more desperate, during the clash two barrels of water and two barrels of wine have been pitched into the sea. A small dose of the last of the wine distributed to the survivors, when fishing with medals and bayonets made in to hooks proves a fruitless pursuit, some of the raft's party begin dining on leather harnesses, saber scabbards, ammunition pouches ... and then the flesh of the dead. During the third night on the raft, though the sea is calmer, the survivors doze standing up when swells in the ocean bring water up over their knees ... a twelve more people vanish. On the fourth day, a shoal of tiny flying fish join the passengers and are quickly devoured (a makeshift oven is created and a fire somehow started, which the rafters use to cook the fish and grill bits of human flesh).
Abandoning The Raft
By this time everyone alive on the raft a cannibal (when the fire finally goes out, bits of human flesh are hung up and salted in the sea spray), after a bit of satisfied rest, another riot breaks out as a group of maniacs try to find loot they believe has been transferred from the Medusa to the raft, kill a officer they loathe that isn't even on the raft, and take out the leaders at the center of the platform (once again the sole women is pitched into the sea and then rescued). More blood, at the end of the second bout of violence, the survivors' numbers are reduced from 147 to only 30, and then the number goes down to 27 when three individuals are caught breaking into the remaining wine and executed on the spot after a brief trial. And later in the day it is decided that the "strong" will be able to survive longer if the "weak" are no longer around, a decision that allows three sailors and a soldier to serve as executioners, doing away with the sole woman (who has suffered a broken thigh in the chaos aboard the raft) and her husband (who in all the battling has been severely wounded by a blade cut to his head). Reality and hallucinations merging into each other, along with the days and nights, the raft's company is reduced to fifteen souls who find hope in the arrival of a group of white butterflies and a batch of seagulls, throw most of their weapons into the sea (another riot almost takes place when a single lemon and a few cloves of garlic are discovered and their possession is disputed), wet their parched lips and tongues with urine cooled in small tin containers (there will even be a tasting to determine who produces the most pleasing piss), and to the indignities endured are added the agonizing stings of jellyfish and the sight of huge sharks circling the platform as they wait for their next meal. Sunburnt, emaciated, bearded, covered in huge ulcers, the living skeletons aboard the raft summon the strength on the eleventh day of their abandonment to build a smaller raft that they hope they might be able to row to shore, but consign their fates to "la machine" when the new structure sinks as the first man steps aboard.
Cannibal Night
Battle
On July 17, their twelfth day adrift, while consuming a small ration of wine, the fifteen spot a mast on the horizon and try to signal the ship, but after 30 minutes of unsuccessful signaling when the mast vanishes, the raft's company collapses in despair of believing they have wasted the last shreds of their energy waving at a mirage and resign themselves to death. Two hours later though, when the master gunner goes forward to breathe a bit of solitary, fresh air, he is stunned to find the Argus heading directly for the raft (searching for Medusa, Captain Leon Parnajon of the Argus instead discovers the raft, which has drifted ninety nautical miles south from the Medusa and thirty-two nautical miles from the coastal town of Portendick). Rescue! Survivors transferred to the French vessel (the fifteen consist of infantry captain, Dupont, the infantry lieutenant, l'Heureux, two second lieutenants, Lozach and Clairet, the governor's secretary, Griffon du Bellay, the midshipman, Coudein, the sergeant-major Charlot, Courtade, the master gunner, Lavillette, the workshop foreman, Coste, a sailor, a helmsman named Thomas, Francois, a male nurse, Jean-Charles, a black soldier, the engineer, Correard, and the surgeon and leader of the the center group, Dr. Jean-Baptiste-Henri Savigny ... and in a few months the trauma of their voyage will take the lives of five more men), the men have their wounds treated and are given a meal of hot broth ... and watched for the two days they are aboard as they are all still suffering from various degrees of delirium (with one man, wanting to jump into the sea to search for his missing wallet, has to be put in restraints). Moving beneath favorable winds, at 3:00 in the afternoon of July 19, the Argus drops anchor at the port of Saint-Louis.
Rescue
The drama not quite over due to the craven greed of Governor Schmaltz seeking money and other valuables left behind on Medusa, the governor mount threes attempts to locate the wreck and salvage it's contents, finally locating the wreck fifty-two days after it is abandoned. Incredibly, it is also discovered that there are still three knife armed wraiths aboard out of the seventeen souls left behind that have survived on brandy, wine, prunes, bacon and biscuits. But the supplies left aboard eventually run out too, and twelve survivors die on the small raft they make to take them to shore, another dies trying to make it to shore aboard a highly leaky chicken coop, and the last casualty occurs with a final exposure death that morning. Booty bought back to Saint-Louis, splitting the profits 50/50 with local businessmen, Schmaltz sells items belonging to other survivors, and keeps other goodies for his own personal use and that of his family. Bourbons pointing fingers at Bonaparte supporters and vice-versa (court-martialed at Rochefort in 1817, Chaumareys will be acquitted of abandoning his squadron, failing to refloat the Medusa, and abandoning the raft, but guilty of incompetent and complacent navigation and of abandoning the Medusa before all her passengers were taken off the wreck ... capital offenses for which spends only three years behind bars, while Schmaltz serves no time whatsoever, but is sent packing from his governorship in 1818), the Medusa tragedy becomes the scandal of its day once details of the grounding and deaths become known in France based on first a joint report written by Dr. Savigny and the governor's secretary, a book version of the disaster that Dr. Savigny and Alexandre Correard co-write (it will become a French best seller and eventually also be published in English, German, Dutch, Italian, and Korean). And there is also the epic oil painting of 27-year-old artist Jean-Louis Andre Theodore Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa (first known as The Shipwreck Scene), that the public sees for the first time in 1819.
Gericault
Obsessed by the tragedy and believing he can become one of the great artists of his time (and slightly bonkers after having a failed affair with his married aunt), Gericault throws himself into his work ... the artist interviews Dr. Savigny and Alexandre Correard, with help from Savigny, Correard, and the carpenter, Lavillette, builds a scale model of the raft in his studio, makes sketches of the bodies in the morgue of the hospital Beaujon and the faces of those dying in their beds, brings severed limbs home to study their decomposition, borrows a severed head from an insane asylum for two weeks, studies the sea and sky of the port of Le Harve for weeks, travels the coast of France looking at various storms, makes a number of preliminary sketches of various events (before settling on the survivors seeing a mast on the horizon for the first time), shaves his head, and then with the assistance of his 18-year-old trainee, Louis-Alexis Jamar, leads a monastic existence of almost total silence painting ... eight months of painting from November 1818 to August of 1819, using friends as models, to produce a 16 foot and one inch by 23 foot and six inch canvas of what is now considered a masterpiece of the French Romantic style of painting. Garnering mixed reviews upon its unveiling at the 1819 Paris Salon sponsored by King Louis XVIII (an exhibition of 1,300 paintings, 208 sculptures, and numerous other works of engraving and design, it will be awarded a gold medal by the salon's judging panel), upon Gericault's death from a chronic tubercular infection at the age of 32 on January 26, 1824 in Paris (the artist is buried in the city's legendary Pere Lachaise Cemetery), the painting is sold to Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin for the Louvre, where it resides to this day (though it does find a temporary hidden home at the Chateau de Chambord during WWII), one room away from the portrait of someone named Mona Lisa, and is viewed yearly by millions.
!6 Color Palette Of The Painting
At The Louvre (Center) In 1831
Gericault Grave
At The Louvre - Now
