We have been spared her humiliation; let us hope to profit by her subsequent example.

Between the same years (1760 and 1763) the French people rose, as afterward in 1793, and declared they would have a navy.

"Popular feeling, skilfully directed by the government, took up the cry from one end of France to the other, 'The navy must be restored.' Gifts of ships were made by cities, by corporations, and by private subscriptions.

A prodigious activity sprang up in the lately silent ports; everywhere ships were building or repairing." This activity was sustained; the arsenals were replenished, the material of every kind was put on a satisfactory footing, the artillery reorganized, and ten thousand trained gunners drilled and maintained.
The tone and action of the naval officers of the day instantly felt the popular impulse, for which indeed some loftier spirits among them had been not only waiting but working.

At no time was greater mental and professional activity found among French naval officers than just then, when their ships had been suffered to rot away by governmental inaction.