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Medusa (ship)
Encyclopedia
The Méduse was a 40-gun Pallas-class frigate of the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
, launched in 1810. She took part in the Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, namely in the late stages of the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811
Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811
The Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811 was a series of amphibious operations and naval actions fought to determine possession of the French Indian Ocean territories of Île de France and Île Bonaparte during the Napoleonic Wars...
and in raids in the Caribbean.
After the Bourbon Restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
, she was armed en flûte
En flûte
Arming a ship en flûte means removing some or all of the artillery. Since ships have a limited amount of cargo space, they may be armed en flûte to make room for other cargo, such as troops and ammunition...
to ferry French officials to Saint-Louis
Saint-Louis, Senegal
Saint-Louis, or Ndar as it is called in Wolof, is the capital of Senegal's Saint-Louis Region. Located in the northwest of Senegal, near the mouth of the Senegal River, and 320 km north of Senegal's capital city Dakar, it has a population officially estimated at 176,000 in 2005. Saint-Louis...
, in Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, for the handover of the colony. Through inept navigation of her captain, an émigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
given command for political reasons but incompetent as a naval officer, Méduse struck the Bank of Arguin and became a total loss. In the immediate aftermath of the wreckage, passengers and crew attempted to evacuate the ship on an improvised raft and became helpless when the frigate's launches gave up towing them. Only a handful of the shipwrecked survived the ordeal.
The scenes on the raft instilled considerable public emotion, making Méduse one of the most infamous shipwreck
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
s of the Age of Sail
Age of Sail
The Age of Sail was the period in which international trade and naval warfare were dominated by sailing ships, lasting from the 16th to the mid 19th century...
. It was definitively immortalized when Théodore Géricault
Théodore Géricault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings...
painted his Raft of the Medusa, which became an icon of French Romanticism.
Napoleonic wars
In 1811, she was sent off to JavaJava
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
with the Nymphe. On 2 September, the frigates arrived at Surabaya
Surabaya
Surabaya is Indonesia's second-largest city with a population of over 2.7 million , and the capital of the province of East Java...
, tailed by the 32-gun frigate HMS Bucephalus. On the 4th, another British ship, , joined the chase, but lost contact on the 8th. On the 12th, Méduse and Nymphe chased the Bucephalus, which escaped and broke contact the next day. Méduse was back in Brest
Brest, France
Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...
on 22 December 1811. She then served in the Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
, and in 1814, she was part of the fleet sent to retake Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...
.
Bourbon "restoration"
After the downfall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII attempted to put Royalists in charge of the navy once more. Consequently Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys was appointed Capitaine de frégate even though he had hardly sailed in 20 years.Course to Senegal
On 17 June 1816, a convoy under the command of De Chaumareys on Méduse departed RochefortRochefort, Charente-Maritime
Rochefort is a commune in southwestern France, a port on the Charente estuary. It is a sub-prefecture of the Charente-Maritime department.-History:...
, accompanied by the storeship Loire, the brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
Argus and the corvette
Corvette
A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...
Écho, to receive the British handover of the port of Saint-Louis
Saint-Louis, Senegal
Saint-Louis, or Ndar as it is called in Wolof, is the capital of Senegal's Saint-Louis Region. Located in the northwest of Senegal, near the mouth of the Senegal River, and 320 km north of Senegal's capital city Dakar, it has a population officially estimated at 176,000 in 2005. Saint-Louis...
in Senegal. The Méduse, armed en flûte, carried passengers, including the appointed French governor of Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, Colonel Julien-Désire Schmaltz, and his wife Reine Schmaltz. The Méduse's complement totaled 400, including 160 crew. She reached Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
on 27 June.
Schmaltz then wanted to reach St. Louis as fast as possible, by the most direct route, but this would take the fleet dangerously close to the shore, where there were many sandbars and reefs. Experienced crews sailed further out. The Méduse was the fastest of the convoy and, disregarding his orders, the captain quickly lost contact with the Loire and the Argus. The Echo kept pace and attempted to guide Méduse, but to no avail. The Echo then prudently moved further out to sea.
Chaumareys had decided to involve one of the passengers, Richefort, in the navigation of the frigate. Richefort was a philosopher and a member of the Philanthropic Society of Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
, but had no qualification to guide ships. As she closed on the coast of Africa, the course of Méduse became dangerous. Richefort apparently mistook a large cloud bank on the horizon for Cape Blanco
Ras Nouadhibou
Ras Nouadhibou is a 40-mile peninsula or headland in the African coast of the Atlantic Ocean by the Tropic of Cancer. It is internationally known as Cap Blanc in French or Cabo Blanco in Spanish .- History :...
on the African coast, and so underestimated the proximity of the Bank of Arguin off the coast of Mauritania
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
.
On 2 July 1816 Méduse ran into increasingly shallow water, both Chaumareys and Richefort ignoring signs such as white breakers and mud in the water. Eventually, Lieutenant Maudet took it upon himself to start taking soundings off the bow, and, measuring only 18 fathom
Fathom
A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems, used especially for measuring the depth of water.There are 2 yards in an imperial or U.S. fathom...
s, warned his captain. Realising the danger at last, Chaumareys ordered the ship brought up into the wind, but it was too late, and Méduse ran aground 50 kilometres off the coast. The accident occurred at a spring high tide
High Tide
High Tide was a band formed in 1969 by Tony Hill , Simon House , Peter Pavli and Roger Hadden .-History:...
, which made it difficult to re-float the frigate. The Captain refused to jettison the 14 three-tonne cannons and so the ship settled into the bank.
The raft
Reef
In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....
were proposed, in particular, that of building a raft to unload Méduses cargo. A raft was soon built; it was 20 metres in length and 7 metres in width, and was nicknamed "la Machine" by the crew. On 5 July, a gale
Gale
A gale is a very strong wind. There are conflicting definitions of how strong a wind must be to be considered a gale. The U.S. government's National Weather Service defines a gale as 34–47 knots of sustained surface winds. Forecasters typically issue gale warnings when winds of this strength are...
developed and the Méduse showed signs of breaking up. Passengers and crew panicked and so the captain decided to evacuate the frigate immediately, with 146 men and one woman boarding the woefully unstable raft, towed by the boats of Méduse. The raft had few supplies and no means of steering or navigation. Much of its deck was under water. Seventeen men decided to stay on the Méduse, and the rest boarded the ship's longboats. The crew of the boats soon realised that towing the raft was impractical and began to fear being overwhelmed by the desperate survivors on the raft. It was decided to cut the ropes, leaving the raft and its occupants to their fate. The lifeboats, including the captain and Governor Schmaltz aboard, then sailed away to safety. Some landed immediately on the coast of Africa, most of the survivors making their way overland to Senegal though some died on the way.
On the raft, the situation deteriorated rapidly. Among the provisions were casks of wine instead of water. Fights broke out between the officers and passengers on one hand, and the sailors and soldiers on the other. On the first night adrift, 20 men were killed or committed suicide. Stormy weather threatened, and only the centre of the raft was secure. Dozens died either in fighting to get to the centre, or because they were washed overboard by the waves. Rations dwindled rapidly; by the fourth day there were only 67 left alive on the raft, and some resorted to cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
. On the eighth day, the fittest began throwing the weak and wounded overboard until only fifteen men remained, all of whom survived until their rescue on 17 July by Argus, which had accidentally encountered them.
Aftermath
Argus took the survivors of the raft to Saint-LouisSaint-Louis, Senegal
Saint-Louis, or Ndar as it is called in Wolof, is the capital of Senegal's Saint-Louis Region. Located in the northwest of Senegal, near the mouth of the Senegal River, and 320 km north of Senegal's capital city Dakar, it has a population officially estimated at 176,000 in 2005. Saint-Louis...
to recover. Five of them, including Jean Charles, the last African crew member, died within days. De Chaumareys decided to rescue the gold that was still on board the Méduse and sent out a salvage crew, which discovered that the Méduse was still intact. Three of the 17 men who had decided to stay on the Méduse were still alive 54 days later. British naval officers helped the survivors to return to France because aid from the French Minister of the Marine was not forthcoming.
Méduses surviving surgeon, Henri Savigny, submitted his account to the authorities. It was leaked to an anti-Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
newspaper, the Journal des débats
Journal des Débats
The Journal des débats was a French newspaper, published between 1789 and 1944 that changed title several times...
, and appeared on 13 September 1816. Savigny and another survivor, the geographer Alexandre Corréard, then wrote a book with their own account (Naufrage de la frégate la Méduse) of the incident, published in 1817. It went through five editions by 1821 and was also published with success in English, German, Dutch and Italian translations. A revision of the text in later editions increased the political thrust of the work.
The matter became a scandal in French politics and officials tried to cover it up. At his court martial at Port de Rochefort in 1817 De Chaumareys was tried on five counts but acquitted of abandoning his squadron, of failing to re-float his ship and of abandoning the raft. However he was found guilty of incompetent and complacent navigation and of abandoning the Méduse before all her passengers had been taken off. Even though this verdict implied the death penalty, De Chaumareys was sentenced to only three years in jail.
The court martial was widely thought to be a "whitewash" and in 1818 Governor Schmaltz was forced to resign. The Gouvion de Saint-Cyr Law later ensured that promotions in the French military were based on merit.
Géricault's depiction
Impressed by accounts of the shipwreck, the 25-year-old artist Théodore Géricault decided to make a painting based on the incident and contacted the writers in 1818. His work depicts a moment recounted by one of the survivors: prior to their rescue, the passengers saw a ship on the horizon, which they tried to signal. She disappeared, and in the words of one of the surviving crew members, "From the delirium of joy, we fell into profound despondency and grief". The ship, Argus, reappeared two hours later and rescued those who remained.
Shipwreck site found
In 1980, a French marine archeologicalMaritime archaeology
Maritime archaeology is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, shore side facilities, port-related structures, cargoes, human remains and submerged...
expedition led by Jean-Yves Blot located the Méduse shipwreck site off the coast of modern-day Mauritania
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
. The team was based out of the port city of Nouadhibou, approximately 160 kilometres north of the wreck site and used four sailboats as the expedition working vessels. The primary search tool was a one-of-a-kind magnetometer
Magnetometer
A magnetometer is a measuring instrument used to measure the strength or direction of a magnetic field either produced in the laboratory or existing in nature...
developed by the CEA
Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique
The Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives or CEA, is a French “public establishment related to industrial and commercial activities” whose mission is to develop all applications of nuclear power, both civilian and military...
.
The search area was defined on the basis of the accounts of survivors of the Méduse and, more importantly, on the records of an 1817 French coastal mapping expedition that found the vessel's remains still projecting above the waves. The background research proved to be so good that the expedition team located the shipwreck site on the very first day of searching. They then recovered enough artifacts to identify the wreck positively and to mount an exhibit in the Marine Museum in Paris.
Portrayals in film
- Iradj Azimi. Le Radeau de la MéduseLe Radeau de la MéduseFor other uses, including the painting by Théodore Géricault See: Radeau 'Le Radeau de la Méduse is a French film by Iradj Azimi .-Plot:...
, French film, 1994- Cast: Jean YanneJean YanneJean Yanne is the artist name of Jean Gouyé, born the 18 July 1933 in Les Lilas who died the 23 May 2003 in Morsains...
(Chaumareys), Claude JadeClaude JadeClaude Marcelle Jorré, better known as Claude Jade , was a French actress, known for starring as Christine in François Truffaut's three films Stolen Kisses , Bed and Board and Love on the Run . Jade acted in theatre, film and television...
(Reine Schmaltz), Philippe Laudenbach (Julien Schmaltz), Laurent TerzieffLaurent TerzieffLaurent Terzieff was a French actor.- Biography :Laurent Terzieff was the son of a plastician and of Jean Terzieff, a Russian sculptor who emigrated to France during the First World War. The original surname of his family was Čemerzin.The spectacle of the bombardments had a dramatic effect on...
(Théodore Géricault), Daniel MesguichDaniel MesguichDaniel Mesguich is a French-Algerian actor and director in theater and opera, and professor of stage acting school.-Biography:...
(Lt. Coudein), Alain Macé (Henri Savigny), Jean DesaillyJean DesaillyJean Desailly was a French actor. He was a member of the Comédie-Française from 1942 – 1946, and later participated in about ninety movies.Desailly was married to the French actress Simone Valère....
(La Tullaye), RufusRufus (actor)Rufus is the stage name of Italo-French actor Jacques Narcy. He is also called Zio Vittorio...
(Soldier musician).
- Cast: Jean Yanne
Portrayals in music
- In 1968 the German composer Hans Werner HenzeHans Werner HenzeHans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
wrote an oratorioOratorioAn oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
, Das Floß der MedusaDas Floß der MedusaDas Floß der Medusa is an oratorio by the German composer Hans Werner Henze. It is regarded as a seminal work in the composer's political alignment with left-wing politics....
in memory of Che GuevaraChe GuevaraErnesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
.
Portrayals in literature
- A History of the World in 10½ ChaptersA History of the World in 10½ ChaptersA History of the World in 10½ Chapters is a novel by Julian Barnes published in 1989. It is a collection of short stories in different styles; however, at some points they echo each other and have subtle connection points. Most are fictional but some are historical.-Background:One of the many...
by Julian BarnesJulian BarnesJulian Patrick Barnes is a contemporary English writer, and winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, for his book The Sense of an Ending...
– a semi-fictional work that attempts to deglaze and satirise popular historical legends. The chapter "Shipwreck" is devoted to the analysis of this painting. The first half narrates the incidents leading to the shipwreck and the survival of the crew members. The second half of the chapter renders a dark platonic and satirical analysis of the painting itself, and Géricault's "softening" the impact of crude reality in order to preserve the aestheticism of the work.
- The German dramatist Georg KaiserGeorg KaiserFriedrich Carl Georg Kaiser, called Georg Kaiser, was a German dramatist.-Biography:Kaiser was born at Magdeburg....
wrote a play The Raft of the Medusa (Das Floß der Medusa) (1940–1943).
- The untranslated second volume of Peter WeissPeter WeissPeter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance....
's novel The Aesthetics of ResistanceThe Aesthetics of ResistanceThe Aesthetics of Resistance is a three-volume novel by the German-born playwright, novelist, filmmaker, and painter Peter Weiss.Spanning from the late 1930s into World War II, this historical novel dramatizes anti-fascist resistance and the rise and fall of proletarian political parties in Europe...
(Die Ästhetik des Widerstands) opens with a detailed historical account of the Medusa and subsequently describes Géricault's painting.
- The Raft by Arabella Edge, published in 2006, is a fictional account describing how Géricault may have come to his painting. (The American edition, published in 2007 by Simon & Schuster, is titled The God of Spring.)
- Oceano Mare by Alessandro BariccoAlessandro BariccoAlessandro Baricco is a popular Italian writer, director and performer. His novels have been translated into a wide number of languages...
– The second book describes the event from the point of view of one of the passengers of the raft.
- In Arthur C. Clarke's 2061, Dr. Heywood Floyd's friends give him a print of the painting as a tongue-in-cheek going-away present for his trip to Halley's comet. Their inscription reads, "Getting there is half the fun."
Other portrayals in popular culture
The rock group Great White used this painting as the cover art for their album Sail AwaySail Away (Great White album)
Sail Away is the seventh studio album by the American hard rock band Great White, released in 1994. It was a much mellower effort, dominated by acoustic guitars and laid back performances. Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band plays the sax solo on "Gone with the Wind"...
.
The second album by Irish folk-rock group The Pogues
The Pogues
The Pogues are a Celtic punk band, formed in 1982 and fronted by Shane MacGowan. The band reached international prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. MacGowan left the band in 1991 due to drinking problems but the band continued first with Joe Strummer and then with Spider Stacy on vocals before...
, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Rum Sodomy & the Lash is the second studio album by the London-based folk punk band The Pogues, released in 1985.The title is taken from a quotation, often attributed to Winston Churchill: "Don't talk to me about naval tradition...
, uses the famous painting as its album cover, with the faces of the band members replacing those of the men on the raft. Also, on their album Hell's Ditch
Hell's Ditch
Hell's Ditch is the fifth full-length album by The Pogues, and the last to feature front man Shane MacGowan as a member. Released in 1990, the album continued the group's slow departure from Irish music, giving more emphasis to rock and straight folk rock, and forsaking their earlier staples of...
they pay tribute to the incident with the song "The Wake of the Medusa".
The layout of the scene is copied in the French comic book Astérix Légionnaire
Asterix
Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix is a series of French comic books written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo . The series first appeared in French in the magazine Pilote on October 29, 1959...
(Goscinny
René Goscinny
René Goscinny was a French comics editor and writer, who is best known for the comic book Astérix, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo, and for his work on the comic series Lucky Luke with Morris and Iznogoud with Jean Tabary.-Early life:Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, to a family...
/Uderzo
Albert Uderzo
Albert Uderzo is a French comic book artist, and scriptwriter. He is best known for his work on the Astérix series, but also drew other comics such as Oumpah-pah, also in collaboration with René Goscinny.-Early life:...
, 1967) to depict yet another shipwreck of Astérix's recurring pirate enemies. The captain's comment is the pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
, "Je suis médusé" ("I am dumbfounded"). Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge in their English translation replaced this pun with a different joke specifically relating to the painting, having the captain say, "We've been framed, by Jericho!"
In The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
comic The Red Sea Sharks
The Red Sea Sharks
The Red Sea Sharks is the nineteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
, while the protagonists are escaping on a raft, a wave washes Captain Haddock
Captain Haddock
Captain Archibald Haddock is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé...
off. He climbs back on with a jellyfish
Jellyfish
Jellyfish are free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria. Medusa is another word for jellyfish, and refers to any free-swimming jellyfish stages in the phylum Cnidaria...
on his head. Tintin
Tintin (character)
Tintin is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Tintin is the protagonist of the series, a reporter and adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy....
asks him: "Do you think this is some raft of Méduse?" (Méduse is the French word for "jellyfish".)
French songwriter and poet Georges Brassens
Georges Brassens
Georges Brassens , 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981), was a French singer-songwriter and poet.Brassens was born in Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier...
alludes to the raft of Méduse in his song "Les copains d'abord" (1964). The song is a hymn to friendship, symbolised by the crew of a ship named "Les Copains d'Abord" (Friends first), and in the first verse it says that she was not "the raft of Méduse".
Dr. Lecter's mind wanders to Géricault's anatomical studies for The Raft of the Medusa while waiting for Senator Martin to focus on their conversation in the novel The Silence of the Lambs
The Silence of the Lambs (novel)
The Silence of the Lambs is a novel by Thomas Harris. First published in 1988, it is the sequel to Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon. Both novels feature the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter, this time pitted against FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling.- Plot summary :The novel takes...
.
See also
- List of shipwrecks
- French political scandalsFrench political scandals-Until 1958:*1816 - shipwreck of and search for French frigate Medusa off the west coast of Africa.*1847 - Teste-Cubières corruption scandal, revealed in May 1847...
- R. v. Dudley and Stephens