Hornblower wondered vaguely what use a royal prince would be to him. It might sometimes be a convenience to have a figurehead, but he could foresee — Hornblower was labouring under all the burden of disillusionment — that the Duke’s presence would much more often involve him in additional and unprofitable labours.
“He will arrive tomorrow if the wind is fair,” said Hau.
“And it is,” said Hornblower, looking out of the window at the flagstaff, where fluttered, side by side, the Union flag of England and the white flag of the Bourbons.
“He must be received with all the solemnity the occasion demands,” said Hau, dropping unconsciously into French through a fairly obvious association of ideas. “A Bourbon prince setting foot on French soil for the first time in twenty years. At the quay he must be greeted by all the authorities. A royal salute. A procession to the church. Te Deum to be sung there. A procession to the Hôtel de Ville, and there a grand reception.”
“That is all your business,” said Hornblower.
The bitter cold of winter still persisted unbroken. Down on the quay, where Hornblower waited while the frigate bearing the Duke was being warped in, a cutting northeasterly wind was blowing, which pierced through the heavy cloak he was wearing. Hornblower was sorry for the seamen and the troops drawn up in line, and for the other seamen who manned the yards of the men-of-war in the harbour. He himself had only just come down from the Hôtel de Ville, staying there until the last moment when a messenger brought him the information that the Duke was about to land, but the dignitaries and minor officials grouped behind him had been assembled some time. It seemed to Hornblower that where he stood he could hear teeth chattering in unison.
He watched with professional interest the warping in of the frigate; he heard the clanking of the windlass and the sharp orders of the officers. Slowly she drew up to the quay. The side-boys and the bosun’s mates came running up the gangway, followed by the officers in full dress. The marine guard of honour formed up. A brow was thrown from the gangway to the quay, and here came the Duke, a tall, stiff man in a Hussar uniform, a blue ribbon across his chest. In the ship the pipes of the bosun’s mates twittered in a long call, the marines presented arms, the officers saluted.
“Step forward to greet His Royal Highness, sir,” prompted Hau at Hornblower’s elbow.
There was a magic mid-point in the brow over which the Duke was walking; as he passed it he crossed from the British ship to the soil of France. Down came the French royal standard from the frigate’s masthead. The pipes died away in one last ecstatic wail. The massed bands burst out in a triumphal march, the salutes began to roar, seamen and soldiers of the guard of honour presented arms after the fashion of two services and two nations. Hornblower found himself stepping forward, laying his cocked hat across his breast in the gesture he had painfully rehearsed under Hau’s guidance that morning, and bowing to the representative of His Most Christian Majesty.
“Sir ‘Oratio,” said the Duke cordially — for all his lifetime in exile apparently he still had a Frenchman’s difficulty in dealing with aspirates. He looked round him. “France, beautiful France.”
Anything less beautiful than the waterfront of Le Havre with a nor’easter blowing Hornblower could not imagine, but perhaps the Duke meant it, and, anyway, the words would sound well to posterity. Probably the Duke had been coached beforehand to say them, by the grave and uniformed dignitaries who followed him down the brow. One of these the Duke indicated as Monsieur — Hornblower did not catch the name — the chevalier d’honneur, and this gentleman in turn presented the equerry and the military secretary.
Out of the tail of his eye Hornblower saw the massed dignitaries behind him straightening themselves up from their concerted bow, their hats still across their stomachs.
“Cover yourselves, gentlemen, I beg of you,” said the Duke, and the grey hairs and the bald heads disappeared as the dignitaries gratefully shielded themselves from the wintry wind.