1 96 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
back to France on the fall of Napoleon. And so he sped 
the parting King on his way to the dignified seclusion of 
Holyrood, where the banished monarch lived some years 
in the historic palace of those Stewarts whose exile in 
France had been brightened by the hospitality of his an- 
cestors. D’Urville executed his mission in a manner 
which gave rise to much unpleasant criticism from the 
parties both of the old King and the new. The captain 
was not a diplomatist; his nature was acknowledged by 
his friends to be brusque and morose, though lit by a 
southern enthusiasm that laughed at real difficulties. 
From whatever cause there now intervened a period 
of eclipse if not of disgrace. The seafarer retired in 
1835 to Toulon where he brooded over his plans for com- 
pleting the gigantic task of studying the ethnology of 
the Pacific Islands and fell into such poor circumstances 
that he was compelled even to stop his subscription to 
the Geographical Society. The Society chivalrously de- 
clined to lose so distinguished a member and placed him 
on the honorary list. 
The Ministry of Marine no longer favoured voyages 
of discovery and the explorer who had spent his life 
afloat felt himself stranded and deserted. A change oc- 
curring in the government Admiral Rosamel became Min- 
ister of Marine and D’Urville hearing a good report of 
his character and disposition resolved to make another at- 
tempt to carry out his favourite scheme of an anthropo- 
logical expedition to study the Pacific Islands ; “ I have 
the vanity/’ he said, “ to believe that few men to-day 
know Oceania as I do,” and in this he was right. 
The proposal was well received at the Marine and the 
plans prepared by D’Urville were submitted to King Louis 
Philippe in due course. We have D’Urville’s word for 
