On 25 March 1798 Tone received orders to join the Armée d'Angleterre at Rouen where he arrived on 5 April. For the next three months he kicked his heels in frustrated inactivity, his bafflement increasing daily about France's reported plans for an attack on England. Although the English expedition had been abandoned early in March, and Bonaparte had embarked on his Egyptian campaign, there was no public announcement. Tone, without access to the Paris papers or communications from Lewines, was desperate for news. He was bored and frustrated. No staff headquarters had been set up. There was nothing to do at Rouen, except read, write, paint and go to the theatre.

I

Letters to Matilda were more frequent than on previous separations. There are signs of increasing domesticity after six months of as normal marital life as they had ever had, and Tone showed a desire to return to Paris as frequently as possible. For nearly a month before leaving Paris in April, he had hunted unsuccessfully for new lodgings for his family. They were having problems with the landlady at 9 cul-de-sac Notre-Dame-des-Champs. With hindsight he recognised his mistake in not bringing over his family in 1796 and realising his assets by purchasing property in the French countryside. But he had not then envisaged such an extended residence in France. Matilda and Matthew found new lodgings some weeks later at 29 rue des Batailles, Chaillot, on the outskirts of Paris and presumably cheaper. Tone had secured a captaincy in the French army for his brother, and while he awaited orders Matthew lodged with Matilda: ‘the difference of expense to her will be but trifling’, wrote Tone from Rouen, ‘and everything here is dearer than at Paris’. But he hoped that Mary and Giauque might be able to accommodate Arthur when he arrived.

The children's education was a matter of much concern to him, and there are echoes of his father's complaints about himself: ‘make the boys mind their books … if ever I come to be any thing it will be all along of my learning’. Music figures prominently; sheet music was ordered from Holland, and Matilda was instructed to keep the piano in tune, employ a tutor and make the children practise regularly.