The loss of L’Orient

The French van falls ship by ship. Guerrier and Spartiate strike at 21:00 and Aquilon at 21:25. At about 20:30 a splinter strikes Nelson above his blind eye. He is carried below, but the surgeon finds a flesh wound, and Nelson returns to the deck before the end. Peuple Souverain cuts her cable and drifts out of the line, and Leander moves into the gap to rake Franklin and Orient.

In the centre Orient dismasts Bellerophon, which drifts away at 20:20 with more than 200 casualties. Brueys, already wounded, is almost cut in half by a cannonball and dies on deck. Swiftsure and Alexander, arriving late in the dark, take position on either side of Orient, and Majestic, whose captain has been killed, engages Tonnant and Heureux.

The destruction of L’Orient at the Battle of the Nile, painting by George Arnald, 1825 to 1827Wikimedia Commons, George Arnald, Public domain (The Battle of the Nile.jpg)

At 21:00 a fire breaks out on Orient. The British gunners aim at it, and Tonnant, Heureux and Mercure cut their cables and drift south. At 22:00 the fire reaches the magazines and Orient explodes. Fewer than 100 of her crew survive, and more than 1,000 are killed, among them Captain Casabianca and his twelve-year-old son.

The Battle of the Nile at 10 pm on 1 August 1798, painting by Thomas Luny, 1834Wikimedia Commons, Thomas Luny, Public domain (Luny Thomas Battle Of The Nile August 1st 1798 At 10pm.jpg)

Sources

Oliver Warner, The Battle of the Nile (1960).
William James, The Naval History of Great Britain, volume 2 (1827).
Roy and Lesley Adkins, The War for All the Oceans (2006).

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