Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/188

160 After serving in garrison for three years and a half at Landrecies, the regiment of Clare was ordered to Dunkerque to embark for the Isle of France. The regiment, having taken its tour of duty in the island for eighteen months, returned to France, and, disembarking at L'Orient, was ordered to Béthune.

This happened in 1773. France was then at peace with all the world, and no prospect of war seemed to loom in the future. The promotion of de Boigne had been slow, and, beginning to feel disgusted with a life so monotonous and so devoid of enterprise, he asked himself if it would not be advisable to seek another scene for the occupation of the abilities he felt that he possessed. It chanced that Russia was then at war with Turkey. The Russian Government was in the habit in those days of welcoming eagerly instructed officers into the ranks of its army. De Boigne resolved, then, to resign his commission in the French service and to offer himself to her northern ally.

His resignation was accepted, and de Boigne went to Turin. Obtaining there letters of introduction to Count Orloff, who commanded the Russian land and sea forces in the Grecian Archipelago, he returned to Marseilles and embarked on board the first ship sailing thence for Greece. Almost immediately on his arrival there he was appointed captain in a Greek regiment in the service of the Empress Catherine. This regiment formed a part of the army employed in besieging the island of Tenedos. A detachment of it, to which