Sabine Renault-Sablonière — The Hermione is a ship whose name is forever associated with that of La Fayette. What is the history of this vessel?
Benedict Donnelly — The Hermione was a frigate in the Royal French Navy at the end of the 18th century. It was built in 1780 with three other frigates in the royal arsenal in Rochefort at the very time that France, having thrown in its lot with American independence, was at war with England.
It was, to be precise, a warship with 26 cannon, fast and manoeuvrable, a very agile sailing ship of 60 metres in length, a three-masted ship capable of carrying 17 sails with a total surface of more than 2,000 square metres.
A frigate such as Hermione represented at the time the summum of progress for naval sailing ships, as much for its rigging as the design of its hull; a good footslogger that could get up to 12 knots, a remarkable speed for the time.
The Hermione began to sail in May 1779 under the command of Louis-René-Madeleine de La Touche, the count of Tréville, known as Latouche-Tréville. It was at first used to track down pirate ships and merchant vessels.
It was in March 1780 that it became a legend, taking on board an illustrious passenger, the Marquis de La Fayette, for an Atlantic crossing that took 38 days. La Fayette stayed on board until Boston where he disembarked to join up with George Washington in his Morristown headquarters in New Jersey. This time, it was no longer the young aristocratic officer committed to American independence, a volunteer defying the authorities’ veto, but the King of France’s official envoy who had come to announce to the commander-in- chief of the American army the official engagement of his country on the Americans’ side and the imminent arrival of the expeditionary corps commanded by Rochambeau.
By its participation in the decisive naval battles for the independence of the United States, notably the battle of Chesapeake, crucial for the English defeat in Yorktown, the Hermione acquired the right to symbolise for history France’s commitment to the independence of the United States, the cornerstone of Franco- American friendship.
S. R.-S. — The rebuilding of an exact replica of the Hermione that you led revived an exceptional site, that of the royal arsenal in Rochefort, the Corderie royale or Royal Ropery, which is the jewel of the site. It also aimed to revive the friendship between France and the United States. On this side of the Atlantic, how did you go about this?
B. D. — The choice of the name for the association to rebuild the Hermione was a founding act. We, in effect, chose to associate the name of the ship, the Hermione, with that of La Fayette, thereby very clearly displaying our Franco-American identity. Incidentally, the choice of a Franco-American president – that is to say, me – strengthened this demonstration: my father is American and, after landing at the age of 20 in Normandy in June 1944, in the army of General Bradley where he was liaison officer with the French army, he met my mother at Liberation dances and married her in Washington before moving some years later to Paris.
The popular success of the Hermione construction site – with more than 4 million visitors – and the 17 years it took allowed the association to make French public opinion aware of France’s decisive contribution to the independence of the United States of America, symbolised by the personal involvement of La Fayette thanks to whom ‘a French name was written on the birth certificate of a transatlantic nation’ in the beautiful words of Lamartine.
The awareness campaign in France of all Franco-American networks – cultural, economic and diplomatic – of the challenge raised by the Hermione also helped lift the profile of our adventure.
S. R.-S. — On the other side of the Atlantic, how did you motivate the Americans so that they would become involved in the reconstruction of the ship?
B. D. — We began very early! From 1999, right at the start of the work, we went to meet political, economic and community actors in Boston, New York and Washington to introduce the Hermione adventure and our plan to cross the Atlantic in the steps of La Fayette. We had a warm welcome, but … be careful! Because we were quite incapable of giving them a timeframe for the project and, a fortiori, a precise date for the stopovers in the various ports where Hermione had been in 1780 and 1781.
That said, we clearly realised, during our different contacts, the challenge that awaited us in popularising the voyage of the Hermione with the American public at large. Our interlocutors put the stress on the strong reputation of La Fayette in the United States: more than 140 towns, counties and squares carry his name; his portrait hangs in the Congress in Washington; and his statue takes centre-stage opposite the White House on La Fayette Square … But, at the same time, they insisted rightly as well on the very common lack of knowledge about his personality and his role, and also that of France, in the American War of Independence.
If we wanted the Hermione’s voyage to have some sense for Americans, we had, very early on, to undertake a strong information campaign among the grass-roots of the population in the future ports of call. With this in mind, we inspired the creation in the United States of an association, ‘Friends of Hermione in America’, at first chaired by the former ambassador of the United States to France, Howard Leach, then by a businessman fascinated by history and heritage, Miles Young. We helped them mobilise funds from French and American companies to allow them to devise and put in place an ambitious festive, educational and cultural programme for the Hermione’s voyage.
And we worked with them, hand in hand, to work out the programme of its stopovers. A delegation from our association, led by Jean-François Fountaine, our vice president – who was to become the mayor of La Rochelle – and Yann Cariou, the future captain of Hermione, embarked on a reconnaissance trip to the different ports affected to ensure the feasibility of each stop. The American association took over and created in each port a welcome committee which prepared the programme of events in coordination with local communities.
S. R.-S. — How was the frigate received in the United States in 2015? Can you describe to us the main stages of this expedition and give us a few anecdotes?
B. D. — The arrival of the Hermione on the American coast on 5 June 2015, after a month-long crossing from the Canaries, set the tone for the voyage: a welcome on the open seas by a ship of the US Navy and, on the wharfs of Yorktown, a tangible emotion and a real fervour, stimulated by the infectious enthusiasm of the young sailors dotted on the masts who struck up a cappella the chants that they had rehearsed during the crossing. Without forgetting a prestigious welcome led by the governor of Virginia accompanied by the French environment minister and France’s ambassador to the United States. Another symbolic moment of the start of the voyage was the sailing up the Potomac on 9 June and the anchoring of the Hermione in front of the residence of George Washington at Mount Vernon. Yann Cariou, the first mate, and several sailors in full 18th century dress disembarked at the end of the day on a small dinghy to go and pay their respects at George Washington’s tomb.
Then, after a stop in Alexandria, came the port of Washington, then sailing down the Potomac and a memorable stopover in Annapolis. A halt with maximum risk to come alongside the quay with scarcely 10 centimetres of water below the keel. A cold sweat for those in charge of the ship! But the Hermione couldn’t miss Annapolis, the city that is home to the headquarters of the United States Naval Academy and to the tomb of John Paul Jones, a hero of American independence. It was there too that Washington and La Fayette set up camp before heading for the mouth of Chesapeake in the direction of Yorktown. A magnificent stop marked by a big parade through the whole town under a blazing sun and a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius.
S. R.-S. — After this dive into history, Hermione left to meet up with the America of today …
B. D. — In Baltimore first, in the heart of an urban area with nearly 3 million inhabitants where the Black population is clearly in the majority. A life-size test of the impact of the voyage of the Hermione on the American public and … the bet was won! A great popular success – several thousand visitors a day – at the feet of the skyscrapers with a strong presence of students from the schools of Baltimore.
A bet won too in Philadelphia, as I recounted at the end of the voyage in the preface to the book by Francis Latreille and Yves Gaubert, published by Gallimard at the end of 2015:
‘Philadelphia, Thursday 25 June towards 16 hours: since noon, on the banks of the River Delaware, there had been a party, an American-style party – barbecue, beer and music – under a fierce sun. ‘Philly’, Pennsylvania’s big metropolis, the provisional capital of the United States during the War of Independence, the city of Benjamin Franklin where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the American Constitution was voted for, was for the first time welcoming a parade of Tall Ships, the big American sailing ships with Hermione as the guest of honour. Hip, hip, hooray! Suddenly it was on the horizon and saluted by tens of thousands of people massed on either side of the river, and saluted by the guns of the cruiser the New Jersey, the museum ship of the American Navy. The cannon of the Hermione boomed in turn and we French, anonymous in the American crowd, embraced each other between laughter and tears.’
A meeting, so symbolic as well, on 4 July, Independence Day in New York with the Statue of Liberty at the end of a great parade of ships from the Verrazano Bridge to the Hudson, in the presence of American officials and France’s defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian.
The last stops were just as festive, warm and moving.
In Newport, where the troops of Rochambeau’s French expeditionary corps disembarked, the Hermione was greeted by the sound of cannon-fire and Americans in 18th-century costumes.
And on to Boston, where today’s Hermione arrived on the morning of 11 July, 235 years after La Fayette reached land in the original Hermione.
Then, finally, to Castine, the former capital of Acadia, on the banks of the Penboscot River, that was populated by the French in the 16th and 17th centuries and whose people were deported by the English between 1755 and 1763. In 1780, the Hermione was moored in the river. Castine gave the ship and its crew a particularly warm welcome: a big parade of children who filed past with a papier mâché replica of the Hermione and the representatives of Indian tribes …
Sixteen stops in total during four months and as many encounters with history and moments of emotion and happiness shared between the French and Americans around a marvellous ambassador, the Hermione, and its most illustrious passenger, La Fayette!