and dying by the abbe de Glesnon, the chaplain
of the expedition. The list of the dead was soon to include no less a
person than Admiral de Ternay. He was taken ill of a fever early in
December, and brought on shore to the Hunter house, where he died on
the 15th, being buried with great pomp in Trinity churchyard on the
following day. The coffin was carried through the streets by sailors:
nine priests followed, chanting a requiem for the departed hero. The
tomb placed over the remains by order of Louis XVI. in 1785 having
become injured by the ravages of time, the United States government in
1873, with the co-operation of the marquis de Noailles, then French
minister, had it moved into the vestibule of the church, placing a
granite slab over the tomb. One of Rochambeau's aides ascribes the
admiral's death to chagrin at having let five English ships escape him
in an encounter.

The winter passed slowly. Rochambeau ordered a large hall to be built
as a place of meeting for his officers, but it was not completed until
nearly spring. Meanwhile, the Frenchmen gave occasionally a handsome
ball to the American ladies, such as that of which, in January, the
officers of the regiment De Deux-Ponts were the hosts, and one given by
the handsome Viosmenils on the anniversary of the signing of the treaty
of alliance, February 6, 1781. But the crowning festivity of the French
stay in Newport took place in March, when Washington visited it for the
purpose of witnessing the departure of an expedition comprising part of
the French fleet under Destouches, which was to co-operate with La
Fayette on the Chesapeake. The barge of the French admiral was sent for
the American chief, and he crossed the bay from the Connecticut shore,
landing at Barney's Ferry on the corner of Long Wharf and Washington
street. The sight must have been an imposing one--the beautiful harbor
of Newport full of stately ships of war and gay pleasure-craft, the
French troops drawn up in a close line, three deep, on either side from
the ferry-house up Long Wharf and Washington street to Clarke street,
where it turned at a right angle and continued to Rochambeau's
head-quarters, while the inhabitants, wild with enthusiasm, crowded the
wharves and quays to see the two commanders meet. Both were men of fine
and stately presence: Washington was in the full prime of his imposing
manhood, the very picture of a nation's chief; the French marshal was
covered with brilliant dec