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.
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