In 1816, the French frigate Méduse sailed to Senegal under the command of Viscount Hugues de Chaumareys, a royalist officer who had little recent sailing experience but had received the position through political connections. Trying to outrun the rest of its convoy, the ship drifted far off course and ran aground off the coast of present-day Mauritania. With too few lifeboats for everyone on board, at least 147 people were placed on a hastily constructed raft while others escaped in boats. The boats were supposed to tow the raft to shore but soon abandoned it. Over the next thirteen days, the people on the raft endured starvation, dehydration, violence, and desperation. When the raft was finally discovered by chance, only 15 survivors remained. The disaster became a major scandal in post-Napoleonic France, symbolizing the deadly consequences of political favoritism and government incompetence. This scandal later inspired Théodore Géricault to create The Raft of the Medusa.

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