The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-24 00:00:00

MARSEILLES.

A letter from Marseilles, dated Aug. 19, says :
The French Government are shipping large quan-
tities of barley at Marseilles for England which have
been returned from Genoa. The foreign vessels
which were chartered during the war are being paid
off, and the consequence is that a considerable num-
ber of British merchant seamen have been enabled
to obtain their discharge and enter the navy. The
Coquette, which returned from Cette some 10 days
ago, has during this period entered nearly 40 volun-
teers, of whom a large proportion are ablebodied
seamen. These, with the men before entered and
previously reported, give a total of 65 naval volun-
teers obtained in Marseilles alone, who will prove
no insignificant addition to the Mediterranean fleet,
and would almost suffice to man the Coquette her-
self, exclusively of the commissioned and warrant
officers and marines. The success whichhas attended
this measure fully justifies its suggestion in my
letter of the 19th of last May, and reflects the
highest credit on the officers and crew of the Co-
quette, whose unvarying conduct has dispelled many
prejudices among merchant seamen, and made the
Queen's service popular among them.
It is reported in Toulon that orders have been
received from the French Admiralty to cease dis-
arming the fleet, and that the forts commanding the
entrance to the harbour are being armed with the
guns which have hitherto been kept in store. As
I have mentioned Toulon perhaps it will be of in te-
rest to some of your readers if I state the result of
my last visit is this famous dockyard and naval ar-
senal. The idea of developing the means for French
aggression in the Mediterranean is due, I believe, to
M. Thiers' Government. At all events the first step
in that direction was made in 1840, when the new
large smiths' shop was commenced, and finished
three years afterwards. It contains 96 forge fires, be-
side four larger ones in a neighbouring building to
heat the iron for a steam hammer. The blowers
and hammer are worked by a 20-horse power steam
engine. It, however, soon became evident to the
authorities that the space enclosed within the walls
of the arsenal was too limited to allow of the de-
velopment contemplated. Accordingly the timber
stores, building slips, sawing machinery, and block
factory were transferred to a faubourg of Toulon,
called the Mourillon, and situate on the opposite or
eastern side of the inner roadstead—petite Rade.
The space thus acquired was still found insufficient,
so rapidly did the desire grow among successive
Governments to possess a powerful fleet. The dis-
trict lying beyond the arsenal walls towards the
south-west, and known under the designation of
Castigneau, was determined to be included, and it
is on this new site that the most important works,
which date from the Second Empire, are being
carried out. At Castigneau are three graving or
dry docks in the course of construction, calculated
to receive the largest vessels of war. The largest
dock, which must be nearly 400 feet long, as far as
could be judged by the eye, is finished with the
exception of the gates. It is built in the most sub-
stantial manner, and is faced with massive slabs of
beautiful red and gray granite. The mode em-
ployed in building these docks is peculiar. They
are situate on what formed the beach of Castingeau,
which rapidly shelved down into the deep water of
the roadstead. The buoy off the entrances to the
docks shows a depth of nearly 40 feet, quite suffi-
cient to allow of the passage of vessels of the
heaviest draught at all times, which is absolutely
necessary in the Mediterranean, where the rise and
fall of the tide never exceeds a few inches. From
the character of the soil where the docks are con-
structed it was evident that the ordinary system of
foundation could not be employed, and to have re-
course to piling would necessitate too great an ex-
penditure. The engineer or architect charged with
the works was induced to use concrete in a novel
manner. The site of the dock appears to have been
excavated and a solid bottom of concrete formed
several feet in thickness. Concrete was next used
to form the retaining walls at the sides and end,
and even at the end where the gates are to be
placed. When the walls were brought up to a
sufficient height above the level of the sea, the
water inside the dock thus rudely formed with con-
crete was pumped out, and the structure faced and
finished off with granite in the usual way. I be-
lieve that the labour and expense of excavating
were considerably reduced by building a portion of
the entrance end of the docks out into the sea.
The system followed was analogous to the one used
with such success by Mr. Page in building the piers
of New Battersea-bridge. Timber piles were driven
with sufficient space between the rows to allow of
retaining walls being formed therein by throwing
in concrete. When the space wherein the dock
was to he built was enclosed by the concrete walls
the water was pumped out, and the granite con-
struction proceeded with. The mass of concrete
across the entrance to the finished dock was being
bored with vertical holes, perhaps a couple of
inches in diameter, by the aid of machinery similar
to what is employed in boring artesian wells, and
which was driven by a small portable steam-engine.
Whether these holes are intended to admit of the
concrete mass being blasted into fragments for sub-
sequent removal I could not learn ; bat if so, the
process must be attended with great danger to the
structure of the dock itself. Although it may be
more costly, it would have been safer, I should
think, to have employed a common cofferdam for
this portion of the work—namely, to fill up the
entrance and to exclude the water from the inside.
In forming the concrete walls I noticed that the
ballast was brought down from the exc svations for
the foundations of the new structures at Castigneau
in small waggons, running on a moveable railway.
The waggons were made with the bottom fixed
from the top of one side to the lower part of the
other, which latter opened outwards on hinges. By
this means, when the ballast waggons were brought
on to a scaffold fixed above the water, and where
the mixture was to be effected, the attendant had
only to allow the side to fall down, when the bal-
last discharged itself by its own gravity, and there
was no time lost in tilting. The lime and sand
were first mixed in a species of pug mills, worked
by a portable steam-engine, and then discharged
on to the ballast, with which it was mixed by hand.
The men who fed the lime into the mixing mills
had their mouths and noses carefully rro-
tected by linen cloths ; but, in spite of those
precautions, I was informed they suffered
severely in consequence of inhaling particles of lime.
When the ballast an,l lime were intimately coin-
pounded together, the whole was discharged down
a shoot into a boat, which conveyed it to the spot
where it was to be thrown into the water.

Among the new buildings erected for workshops
I noticed a large structure filled with horizontal
planing machines, of the latest and most approved
construction, from the factory of Messrs. Cail and
Co., on the Quai de Billy, at Paris. The vertical
revolving plate of a turning lathe was upwards of
13 feet in diameter. A second structure was fitted
up as a smiths' shops, with the forges arranged in
pairs, and some in fours. I should think there
could not be less than 50 fires, and room for as
many more.
A third structure was fitted up as a
foundry, with furnaces arranged in four pairs on
either side. The furnaces were marked to contain
10 tons each, and as there were 16 of them in all
this would allow of 160 tons of metal being melted
at the same time—more than would be required for
the largest casting. The anchor-wharf appeared
small •
disproportionately , the anchors themselves
were few in number, nct calculated for line-of-
battle ships, nor even heavy first-class frigates, and
many of them were useless, worn out, and injured
It would seem that the stock had been exhausted
by the extraordinary naval armamen is which France
•
effected for the Italian war. The provision of coal
was respectable, but barely sufficient for the steam
fleet attached to Toulon. Some of the coal was
brought from Newcastle and Cardiff in ships that
were unladen by women, who did the business of
coalwhippers very f tirly. Convicts were employed
to remove the coal from the wharfs to the store-
heaps.

The small-arm repository contained 52,000 stands
of arms, a very small proportion of which only could
be made avilabie in any future war. There were
but a few, probably not more than a couple of
thousand, rifled muskets, carabines a tige. The rest
were smooth bored. Sabre; pistols, hatchets, and

daggers were arranged in fanciful architectural
forms, but were all of old models, and presented
an appearance more curious than formidable,
It is in front of this salle d'armes that cannons are
placed in store on a wharf. As the First Lord of
the Admiralty stated on a recent occasion that he
had not received any authentic information as to
the French fleet being armed with rifled cannons,
it may be as well to state what I saw. In onerow
I counted 34, in another 24, in a third 10, -where
others were being landed from a small craft by
means of a travelling crane, and in a fourth row 12,
three of which'were rifled with two grooves. tinder
a shed or lean-to, projecting from the side of the
salle d'armes, were six other rifled guns in the
course of being fitted with locks. These figures give
a total of 86 rifled cannons, all 30-pounders, which
had been brought down since my last visit. I was
informed that about 20 a week are brought into the
arsenal, and that, so soon as they are fitted with
locks, they are divided among the fleet in commis-
sion, or are substituted for smooth-bored guns in
store belonging to ships out of commission. I
think it probable that the French navy is more
abundantly supplied with rifled artillery than is
generally suspected. All the liners and frigates on
home stations have some, and their number is being
constantly increased. The gunboats are exclusively
armed with them. I was unable to learn where the
rifling is effected, but I believe it is at Ruelle, near
Angouleme, in the department of the Charente,
from the guns having been brought into Toulon in
coasting vessels. The declaration of peace has
caused no relaxation in the efforts to supply the
French navy with rifled ordnance, for more than a
month after the meeting at Villafranca there were
more rifled guns being fitted than during any
period of the war. The Russian guns taken at
Sebastopol are being removed from Toulon to Mar-
seilles, where they are shipped for Ruelle, to be
there recast according to the French model, great
store being set upon Russian iron.
The two large covered building slips in the arsenal,
each 72 feet long and 118 feet high, are no longer
used for their original purpose, since the construc-
tion of ships has been removed to the Mourillon.
It was intended to convert them into sailmakers'
lofts, but they are now kept ready to be used as
building slips when required. I had almost for-
gotten to mention that three dry docks for ships of
the line exist in the arsenal in front of the smiths'
shop first mentioned, in the largest of which I saw
the Fleurus, constructed in 1774 by Groignard.
When the others are finished Toulon will have six
dry docks of ample dimensions and the most solid
construction. Anchored off the,quay is the Muircn,
an English fiigate captured at Venice, which
brought Bonaparte back from Egypt, and which is
now used as a floating barrack for marine infantry.
On the opposite side of the harbour are five old
liners used as seamen's barracks ; one of them is
rigged for the purposes of instruction, and the
others are hulks. Close by a mole projects out
into the sea to narrow the entrance to the harbour,
and on the land side of the mole are masting-sheers
140 feet high.
Leaving the harbour the Mourillon is on the left
hand side of the inner roadstead. It contains five
covered building slips. The first is vacant, but the
send and third contain the Gloire and Invincible
steam frigates, cased in iron—fregates blindees of
which we have heard so much. They are rapidly
approaching completion. Little more remains to do
than to lay the decks and to put on a portion of the
outer scantling. As they are sister ships I give the
few dimensions I could take of one of them. Length
252 feet ; beam, 45 feet ; breadth between ports, 8
feet; thickness of sides on the main deck, indepen-
dently of iron facing plates, 26 6-8 inches. The
timbers are of the largest dimensions, such as are
used in the line-of-battle ships. The beams for the
main deck—the only ones I had an opportunity of
meas•iring—were 16 inches by 17 inches square,
and were partly supported by columns of rolled
iron, of small diameter, stepped on the kelson. I
noticed what appeared to be an experiment. On a
portion of the main deck, on the port side of the
!Lain hatchway, the timber beams werereplaced by
iron girders, with apparently great economy of
space, and equal if not greater strength. The vessel
was pierced with 30 ports on a side, and I presume
would be classed as a 44-gun frigate, although she
is stated to carry no guns on the upper deck. The
iron plates for sheathing her sides were lying about,
having just been brought in. They appeared to be of
rolled iron, 4 6 8 inches (12 centimetres) in thick-
ness, 3 feet 7 inches wide, by 4 feet 6 inches long.
This would make the weight of each plate nearly
1 ton 6 cwt., I presume, although I was told they
weighed no more than a ton, which was evidently
an error. The plates are to be bolted to the frigate's
sides from the line of floatation up to a level with
the upper deck, and their weight, I should ima-
gine, must make her enormously top-heavy. The
rivet holes in the plates had not yet been drilled.
Besides the side plates, the frigate is to have her
upper deck covered with iron plates 6-Bths of an
inch in thickness. They are to be bolted between
two decks, or horizontal layers of timber, with a
view to making her bomb-proof. This additional
weight must tend to increase her top-heaviness.
Beyond the frigate's blindees were the two liners
Massena and Castiglione, in the fourth and fifth
covered building slips, and almost ready for launch-
ing. Further on were ten uncovered building slips,
on which were smaller vessels in different stages
of progress. The stores of timber were consider-
able, but the sawing, block, and converting machi-
nery did not appear important after Portsmouth,
and probably not more effective than in a private
shipbuilder's yard in England. It will be seen
from what has been stated that Toulon possesses, or
will shortly possess, six dry docks, seven building
slips covered, 10 building slips uncovered, with a
foundry and mechanical appliances sufficient to
build, equip, and maintrin a far more formidable
fleet than France has ever possessed hitherto in the
Mediterranean, while, in addition, the private
yards and engine works of La Seyne and La Ciotat
are close at hand, capable of being made available
at any time.

It is not to be expected that one can speak of
Toulon without saying a word of the galley slaves
orforcats. There are in the arsenal and yard 4,500,
who do all the heavy work. They drag the materials
about, and some are employed in sawing timber.
The worst are attached in coup'es by heavy chains
passing round the ankles and waists, and linked
together. The better behaved arc allowed to go
singly, ironed in the same way, with the ex-
ception of the connecting chain. They are clothed
in coarse canvas trousers and shirts, branded with
their numbers, and a woollen jacket. Those who
are condemned for life wear a long green woollen
peakless cap, something like a nightcap with the
top cut off, and made square. On the front of the
cap is a tin plate with the number of the wearer
punched out. The convicts who are condemned
for a term of years are distinguished from the others
by red caps, and those who have been more than
once to the Bagne by yellow sleeves to their jackets.
Their faces, close shaven, bronzed by exposure to
the sun, and brutalised by crime, are fearful to be-
hold, and their repulsive appearance is heightened
by their hair being notched short in lines running
round the head, in order to facilitate their recogni-
tion should they escape.' At night they lie down
on inclined lengths of planking, without mattress
or covering, in twenties or thirties, and an iron rod
is run through the leg chains of each, so that no
one can move without the rest. Their food con-
gists of brown bread, not all wheaten flour, soup,
and haricots et feces, beans. No wine nor tobacco
is allowed, but the co' nsicts are permitted to receive
,10f. a month from their friends, with which the
may purchase any eatables they please. The greatest
and most degra.t.ing punishment, which Must also
be the greatest obstacle to reform' ation' is-chaining
s over the men in coiples. Youth 16 May be seen
chained to old men tainted withoervery vice. Wak-
ing or sleeping, the compagnons de citable are never
separated until frecdom or death removes onc.•
In spite cf the hideous costume and revolting ap-
pearance of the forcats, there were some who still
exhibited traces of their former position, whose
gentility, so to speak, pierced through their convict
garb. One, in particular, standing nearly six feet
high, and who intently watched the arrival of
wounded French soldiers from Italy, struck me on
account of the perfect ease and grace with whieh

he moved, bowing to the guardians passing by,
although his actions were accompanied by the
clanking of his chains. At the time Of my I
visit I was told that there were then among
the forcats Colonel de Cercy, who commanded
a regiment at Marseilles in 1851, who was
charged with the execution of the coup d'etat in
this town, and who was subsequently convicted of
escroquerie; Capt. Doineau, Chef d'un bureau Arab,
convicted of having conspired to murder an Arab
chief; Lieut. de Mercey, convicted of having un-
fairly and with premeditation slain another officer
when tipsy in a duel. The chief army accountant
(chef comptable), who was sent to the Crimea, the
two managers of the bank of Toulon, six abes (and
there are more who manage to keep their former
calling secret.) An eminent painter is chained to
a distinguished member of the Paris bar, and be-
tween them they keep the accounts of one depart-
ment of the prison, while of lawyers and notaries
there is no end. Among the forcats are men of all
nations, as of all ranks in society. We contribute
our quota, one—an Englishman who was arrested
at Calais with forged notes in his possession, and
who, there is every reason to believe, was guiltless
of any criminal intention. He has recently been
brought to Toulon from Rochefort, is consumptive,
and not allowed to wear flannel, although per-
mitted to do so in Rochefort. There is also a hazy
rumour of a British peer of the realm being among
the for cats, but as one has never seen him, nor yet
anyboly that has, it may be dismissed as a myth.
To the present Government of France is due the
merit of.endeavouring to deal with the great social
evil, the Bagnes, where vice stagnates, and grows
more hideous, to be again let loose on society.
Penal settlements have been formed in Africa and
French Guyana, to which some of the convicts have
been removed. Toulon is now the only Bagna ;
those of Rochefort and Brest have been abolished ;
but still the work goes on very slowly. Threecar-
goes of 600 each have been shipped off, yet their
places are nearly all filled up by new arrivals.
Moreover, it would appear that the forcats cannot
be 1(gally compelled to go unless they choose.
They were condemned to hard labour in the dock-
yards and arsenals of the State, and not to trans-
portation. To coax them to go abroad, they are
promised on their arrival they shall be relieved of
their chains, and allowed the free use of their
limbs. But, so great is the dread of Lambessa
and Cayenne, and the craven' fear of death,
that they prefer the fetters and horrors
of the Bagne, at Toulon, to comparative
independence at these two French colonies.
As one of their guardians characterized them,
" Tous ces assassin et voleurs sont si lathes, ils ont

si peur de mourir."
The ships lying in the inner roadstead were those
which formed the siege fleet in the Adriatic. The
liners, including the Bretagne, are tolerably fami-
liar to your readers, and offer no distinguishing
features that call for special notice. The same may
be said of the frigates, but not so of the floating
batteries and gunboats. The Lave floating battery
is 225 feet long, and has the dimensions, in other
respects, of a first-class frigate. She carries 18
guns, larger than our 68-pounders apparently (but
I had no opportunity of measuring them), and only
fights one broadside at a time. Her sides are faced
with iron plates from the water line up to a level
with her upper deck, and I noticed that several of
them were indented and fractured. The thickness
seemed about 3 inches. The bulwarks are made
to fall down, the funnel to sink below the upper
deck, and the masts to disappear on going into ac-
tion. The screw is well below the water, and safe
from shots. The engines are below the water line.
In fighting the battery it will be seen that there is
nothing but her hull to fire at, and that is pro-
tected by shot-proof plates. The crew are all on
the main deck, and out of harm's-way, with the ex-
ception of the officer in command. He stands upon
the upper deck and gives his orders for the manage-
ment of the battery and working of the guns to the
officers on the main deck by means of speaking
tubes. The commanding officer is consequently
exposed to the enemy's shot, and to protect himself
the captain of the Lave has imagined an ingenious
expedient, which has. still to be tested. He has had
made a cylinder of timber about 7 feet in diameter,
and the same in height. The circumference of the
cylinder is coated with iron plates, about half an
inch thick, and from the centre projects a spar
which takes into a hole made in the deck and serves
to keep the cylinder in position. In action the
officer keeps behind the cylinder, against which
the shots striking will glance off, while he can shift
his position for the purposes of observation as
required. Gratings hook on to the side for riflemen,
who are protected by the whole breadth of the
deck. Although these constructions have been
tried to a certain extent in the Black Sea, it is con-
sidered doubtful whether they would answer so
well in a general and sustained action. The be-
tween-decks must rapidly fill wiih smoke and heat
to be insupportable from the absence of scuttles.
Even on a summer's afternoon the ventilation was
most defective, and the temperature overpowering.
The crew said they suffered much from these two
evils, which must almost counterbalance the advan-
tages presumed to be derived from the iron sheath-

ing.
The Condon is, perhaps, as good a specimen as
could be selected of the new light draught gun-
boats. She is about 68 feet long, and 15 feet beam.
Her engine is 16-horse power, and is fixed in the
stern, occupying, with the boilers and furnaces,
about one-third the length of the vessel. The screw
is hardly so well protected as it might be. The
officers' cabin is amidships in front of the engine-
room, and is most unpleasantly hot. The forecastle
occupies the remainder of the vessel, and besibs
berthing the crew and storing provisions and water,
contains the shells in lockers. Her crew consists of
16, all told, including the officer in command, master
gunner, engineer, stokers, and seamen. Her arma-
ment consists of a rifled 30-pounder, which is worked
behind a shield, plated with 4k-inch jron, con-
structed in her bows. The shield, in this instance,
was the height of a man, and the bulwarks between
it and the stem unshipped in action. The deck
where the carriage worked was planked over, to
obtain increased strength, and to allow of an angle
being formed to offer resistance to the running-in of
the gun. Nevertheless, the recoil, I was informed,
was the greatest practical difficulty with which the
men had to contend, from the want of space to
stand clear in working. The shell fired from this gun
is of cast-iroi; it resembles in form and size a loaf
of white sugar, with the sides straight for three-
fourths of its length ; it weighs 571 b., and is filled
with the bursting charge through an orifice in
the apex. A plug is screwed ,into the orifice
and projects outward a short distance. Through
this portion of the plug a hole is drilled, through
which a short lanyard is 'passed, to facilitate
handling. On the circumference at the centre of
gravity are the three ailettes, or feathers, for taking
into the grooves of the gun. They consist of pro-
jecting pieces of iron, cast with the shell, about 21
inches long, half an inch broad, and rising about a
quarter of an inch above the surface. In front of
each ailette zinc has been run in flush with the top
of the latter, and then cut down anglewise to a
point of the circumference, the distance from which
point to the back of the iron projection is equal to
thebreadth of the groove. By this arrangement it
is the zinc which bears against the edges of the
groove inside the gun. With the slightest sea on
the gunboat is found to be dangerously top-heavy.
In being towed back from the Adriatic it was found
necessary, for the safety of the vessel, to unship the
gun, and, what was worse, to remove the upper
iron plates from the shield in the bows. Evidently,
the problem has still to be solved.
A late number of the C'ourrier de Marseilles con-
tains the following paragraph —" An incident which
we would not pass over in silence distinguished the
fete of the 15th of August. While all our ships
were dressed, and the guns of the fort were firing,
the honourable commander of the English gun-
sloop, Coquette, M. Foley, saluted also the national
solemnity with 21 guns. This act of courtesy is not
the best which has distinguished the presence of
the English vessel in our port."
I omitted to mention. that.nine.of.the rifle can-
non arc made after a new model, and made to load
at the breech. They are placed by themselves.
The means for closing the openings at the breech