Too often did our squadrons leave port with a special mission to fulfil, and with the intention of avoiding the enemy; to fall in with him was at once a piece of bad luck.

It was thus that our ships went into action; they submitted to it instead of forcing it....

Fortune would have hesitated longer between the two fleets, and not have borne in the end so heavily against ours, if Brueys, meeting Nelson half way, could have gone out to fight him.

This fettered and timid war, which Villaret and Martin had carried on, had lasted long, thanks to the circumspection of some English admirals and the traditions of the old tactics.

It was with these traditions that the battle of the Nile had broken; the hour for decisive action had come."[13] Some years later came Trafalgar, and again the government of France took up a new policy with the navy.