MODELMAKER'S CORNER
A Royal Squadron that Found Safe Harbor in the US by Ann Jensen In the last months of his reign, before he lost his throne, and then his head in 1793, Louis XVI, King of France, did many of the usual kingly things. One of them was to commission the building of five ships. He never saw them. His date with the guillotine came before they were completed. The five vessels were finished, nonetheless, representing some of the finest examples of French sea power of that century. In the following years the squadron survived the Revolution, Napoleon's wars, and decades of political upheaval. Not once, however, in all that time, did they set sail and put out to sea. Nor were they manned for battle, though they stood at times in danger of destruction by the guns of war. After an incredible journey from the French port of St. Malo in which they were built, the small squadron of ships arrived in this country in 1854. They have been here ever since, preserved and maintained in the Ship Model Collection of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. The five models, built at the order of Louis XVI nearly 200 years ago, are part of a ship model collection that is unique in the world for its quality, number and historic significance. The flagship of the fleet of miniature French vessels is the Ville de Paris, a ship of the line mounting 120 guns. The original warship was the finest vessel of her day, a gift from the citizens of Paris to Louis XV. She served her country well into the reign of Louis XVI when she was lost to the British on her way to assist the American colonists in their struggle for independence. The British received no benefit from their prize, for she was then lost in a storm at sea. The other models commissioned by Louis had also served with distinction and in times undoubtedly better for the monarchy: the Aristide, a ship of the line carrying 74 guns ; the 44-gun frigatelunon ; the 16-gun sloop Berceau; and finally, an unnamed East lndiaman . Each model is meticulous in its detail, and of great beauty, and built at no small expense. Ship models were made as a matter of course in the shipyards ofFrance and England . Most dockyards had ship model shops and crews of professional ship model builders who made models with pinpoint accuracy and workmanship of the highest order. Shipwrights used the dockyard models to study the construction of a ship they were building. With a model, they could work out new rigging patterns, the placement of masts, or other structural changes. A model served also as a presentation piece to be shown to those who commissioned the ship to be built , and who most likely couldn't read plans. Finally, models were made simply to commemorate a particular ship. SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1984
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7h.e 120-gun Ville de Paris, built to the order ofLouis XVI nearly 200 years ago, has recently been restored by mode/maker George F. Dukes, working with Robert Sumrall of the US Naval Academy Mu seum. Over I ,000 hours of highly skilled labor went into this effort. Photo, US Na vy.
A.M. Piedaniel , in the seaport city of St. Malo, had built the little squadron at his monarch's order. After Louis XVI was beheaded he hung onto the models, perhaps hoping for a suitable buyer when the political upheaval in France came to an end . They were still among his belongings when he died in the early 1800s. Then , in 1810, they were bought by a merchant of St. Malo for 32,000 francs . The merchant moved to Paris with his family, hoping to sell the models to Napoleon , who had become Emperor. There he learned that the Emperor had moved on to Dresden. Undaunted , he followed with his family, and the models. One can only imagine his frame of mind when he learned on reaching Dresden that Napoleon and the French had quit the city, where the Russian Czar Alexander was now encamped. Our man from St. Malo evidently decided that one head of state was as good as another, and offered the models to the Czar for 125,000 francs. Alexander, taken with the little squadron, countered with an offer of 100,000 francs. The merchant wouldn't bargain , and as French forces returned to threaten the city, Alexander hastily agreed to pay 125,000 the asking price, and sent a company of his Cossacks to escort the Frenchman and his models to him and close the deal. The Russian Army had retreated across the Elbe, however, and when the Cossacks came to the river, finding the bridge destroyed , they swam across, leaving the merchant stranded on the bank with his family and his models. The merchant moved on to Berlin , where his daughter met a young
Frenchman , Alexander Vattemare, who had been a prisoner of war. Vattemare married the daughter, and was eventuall y able to raise enough money to get himself, his new wife, her family, and the collection of ship models back to France. When Vattemare inherited the collection in 1827, he presented it to the French Navy. He kept track of the little ships, however, and became distressed at their deteriorating condition. During a visit to the United States in 1839, Vattemare met former President John Quincy Adams, and offered him the models. Adams, who had actually been aboard the Ville de Paris as a boy, and remembered the loss of the great ship, accepted it on behalf of the American people. Vattemare then asked the French Navy to restore the damaged models. Th is never happened , so finally, in 1854, the aging Vattemare presented the five ships to Secretary of the Navy James C. Dobbin. With them, he sent a letter recounting the history of the collection and apologizing for its condition. It looked , he said , "as if it had just issued from a terrible conflict." As indeed , it had . A century was to pass with crude, cosmetic repairs to the ships, until in the early 1970s, Robert Sumrall , Curator of the US Naval Academy's model collection , took them in hand in his newly established model shop. Only a trained eye cou ld see that the battered , crudely overpainted ships, missing their gear and most of their rigging, could possibly be works of art capable of distracting a czar from the waging of a war. But that kind of trained care was now available. .t 43