Yves de la Croix captures a sea monster

Yves de la Croix captures sea monsters through a planned ambush at their mating gathering, turning a carefully tested hypothesis into a violent hunt. The capture establishes both the reach of his research and the cost of treating the sea people as quarry: the galleon strikes while the creatures are absorbed in their gathering, and the net pulls them from the sea amid screams. Yves’s success reaches Louis XIV as a living creature, whose thrashing body makes the king’s possession tangible.

The planned ambush

Yves’s expedition finds its quarry in turbulent water. From the flagship, he sees sleek shapes cavorting in the foam, while a song rises over the waves and stills the sailors. The brightness of the sun and the distance initially frustrate his attempt to see clearly, but the encounter confirms the place and timing he had expected. Yves restrains his excitement; he believes his research has brought him to the right spot on the right day and waits to meet success with composure.

The captain’s response is immediate and brutal. Captain Desheureux orders the net cast, overriding the song with his shout. The crew scramble at his command, fearing him more than they fear sea monsters or demons. A winch shrieks and groans as the heavy net goes over the side, its cables clattering against the ship. Yves treats the commotion as an interruption rather than a reason to abandon the plan: after the net’s rattle brings him back to the present, he again waits impassively.

The net and its cost

Before the attack, Yves observes the creatures’ size, color, and number. Their numbers are much reduced from the horde described in reports from a century earlier. The galleon then sweeps through the gathering. The sea monsters, absorbed in their rapture, do not notice the assault until it begins; the attack is therefore not a contest between evenly prepared forces but a surprise strike made possible by Yves’s knowledge of their gathering.

The creatures’ song breaks apart into cries and screams of pain. The ship crushes through them, and the net moves through the thrashing water as sailors haul its cables. Their voices beat against the galleon’s planks. Yves regards the captives as hunted animals: he doubts that beasts feel fear but suspects they can feel pain. That distinction lets him acknowledge their suffering without questioning the categories that permit the hunt. When the net finally draws them from the sea, sunlight gleams on their dark, leathery flanks. The capture is a scientific and royal success for Yves, but the scene makes its physical violence impossible to mistake.

News of success

Once the creatures are aboard, Yves orders the release of carrier pigeons. The royal pigeon keeper’s apprentice warns that the flight is too long and the birds may die. Yves insists. His reasoning is practical: if no bird from this flight reaches France, another flight can carry the news later. A dozen pigeons rise from their wicker cages, their wings beating before their sound fades. Yves looks back and sees one climb higher, its silver message capsule flashing in the sun. The glimpse signals triumph, though the account does not disclose the message’s contents or whether the bird completes its journey.

Arrival at Le Havre

The capture becomes a public royal spectacle at Le Havre. A procession fifty carriages long winds through the cobbled streets as the people press close to cheer Louis XIV and admire the court’s display. At the wharf, the flagship rocks with its sails furled; the gold horses on its stern seem to leap with the ship’s motion. The arrival joins the luxury of the procession to the rough work of the expedition: Yves’s equipment and baggage are unloaded, along with a bundle likened to a body in a shroud.

Marie-Josèphe de la Croix recognizes Yves as he comes down the gangplank, now a grown man in a long black robe rather than the youth in homespun she remembers. She wants to run to greet him but holds herself to the restraint she has learned at Saint-Cyr and Versailles. Behind Yves, sailors carry a gilded basin suspended in a net between shoulder-poles. He steadies its rim with one hand, keeping possession of and protecting the swaying load as he and Captain Desheureux lead it up the dock. A haunting song crosses the procession, surprising Marie-Josèphe with its beauty; its presence hints at a voice aboard the ship, but the arrival scene does not identify the singer.

When the procession reaches Louis XIV, the creature shrieks and its black-green hair whips over the edge of the rocking basin. The king states that it is alive, and Yves confirms it. He draws back the dripping canvas; the creature thrashes and splashes Louis XIV’s silk coat. The king recoils and raises a pomander to his face, while Yves covers the creature again. The capture thus ends not with a specimen displayed inertly, but with living resistance before the monarch who has received it. The arrival confirms Yves’s achievement and exposes its consequence: the creature has been brought from the sea into royal custody, still capable of making its captors draw back.