French brig Inconstant (1811)

• 1. Introduction

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  In early 1815, a French brig named Inconstant carried Napoleon Bonaparte away from his exile on the island of Elba. She brought him back toward the coast of France. Four years earlier, the ship had begun her career quietly, one of 32 sister brigs launched in 1811 for the French Navy. She spent her early years shuttling between ports on the coasts of France and Italy. Nothing about that routine suggested she would ever carry an emperor. Once Napoleon had gone, Inconstant did not vanish into obscurity. She went on serving for decades, through a war in Spain and postings as far off as Brazil and French Guiana. Her working life eventually ended at the port where she was born. How did an ordinary patrol brig end up positioned to carry an emperor at the exact moment he needed her? And what became of her once Napoleon had moved on toward Waterloo?

• 2. An Unfinished Contract

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  Jacques-Noël Sané drew the design that became Inconstant, and Jean-Baptiste Marestier supervised her construction. The Navy had signed the building contract with a contractor named St André in April 1809. That agreement collapsed on the 28th of January 1810, well before the hull was finished, so naval shipwrights took over the job themselves. Once she reached open water, Inconstant was quickly put to routine coastal duty. Between the 11th of November and the 29th of December 1811 she was posted at Livorno, under lieutenant de vaisseau Cornette de Venancourt. Between the 27th of August and the 11th of September 1812 she called at Porto Ercole and Portoferraio. She returned to Portoferraio on the 26th of September 1813, then back to Livorno on the 18th of January 1814. Those postings kept her within easy sail of Elba, where events were about to overtake her quiet routine.

• 3. The Emperor's Brig

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  Following the Treaty of Fontainebleau, allied forces exiled Napoleon to Elba after his forced abdication in 1814. He arrived at the port of Portoferraio on the 30th of May 1814. The allies let him keep a personal guard of six hundred men and a small navy of his own. Inconstant left Toulon on the 24th of April 1814, meant to carry Napoleon from St Tropez to Elba. At his own insistence, that task went to a frigate instead. She sailed to Elba on the 25th of May 1814, and three days later she was formally enrolled in his miniature navy. Her main task was keeping his communications open with Livorno. For most of her time under Napoleon's flag, Lieutenant François-Louis Taillade held command. She ferried Napoleon and 40 soldiers to reoccupy and fortify the islands of Pianosa and Palmaiola. With her crew swelled by 50 extra soldiers, she also carried mail and passengers between Elba and Italy, and cruised against Barbary pirates. A gale drove her ashore on the 6th of January 1815, and only after five hard days was she freed. A second storm then drove her ashore again, causing even more damage than the first. Napoleon briefly relieved Taillade of command, replacing him with a man named Jean François Chautard. Taillade was back in a shared command in time for Napoleon's departure. Between the 26th of February and the 1st of March 1815, Inconstant ferried Napoleon and his generals between Elba and Golfe Juan on the French coast. Once the Hundred Days ended in his defeat, the French navy reclaimed Inconstant in March 1815. The ship Dryade escorted her back to Toulon on the 24th of May.

• 4. War In Spain And Brazil

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  The French Navy rebuilt Inconstant at Toulon between September 1822 and her relaunch on the 14th of March 1823. She then joined the 1823 expedition to Spain, an intervention that restored the Spanish monarchy and ended the period known as the Trienio Liberal. On the 26th of June that year, Inconstant recaptured a merchantman named Nativité, sailing out of Marseilles. She was based at Toulon between the 7th of April and the 26th of November 1823. From there she sailed for Brazil under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars. Inconstant served on the Brazil station from the 10th of December 1823 to the 6th of March 1826. In August 1824 she sailed from Rio de Janeiro to Sâo Salvador, then on to Pernambuco, where she took up station. Petit-Thouars was promoted to capitaine de frégate during this posting. By the 2nd of June 1825 Inconstant was back at Rio de Janeiro.

• 5. Newfoundland To French Guiana

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  After returning from Brazil, Inconstant spent 1827 to 1829 attached to the École navale, the French naval school. From the 1st of February 1829 to the 9th of January 1832 she cruised from Brest to Newfoundland and on to Brazil. In 1834 she underwent a refit. She left Saint Louis, Senegal on the 6th of February 1835, bound for France and carrying officers from the ship Africain. On the 8th of December 1835 she departed Brest for Cayenne. On the 10th of January 1836 she ran aground in the Amazon River, but she managed to refloat herself without help. From 1838 to 1840 Inconstant was stationed in French Guiana.

• 6. Final Years

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  On the 17th of August 1842, the French Navy condemned Inconstant, closing out her active career. She was broken up in dry dock number 6 at Brest, work that began on the 4th of December 1843.