XII. 1793. country from the oppressive yoke which had been imposed CHAP. by the Parisian demagogues. At the head of the whole was the Marquis de la Rouarie, one of those remarkable men who rise into eminence during the stormy days of a revolution, from conscious ability to direct its current. Energetic, impetuous, and enthusiastic, he was first distinguished in the American war, where the intrepidity of his conduct attracted the admiration of the republican troops, and the same qualities rendered him at first an ardent supporter of the Revolution in France; but when the atrocities of the people began, he espoused with equal warmth the opposite side, and used the utmost efforts to rouse the noblesse of Brittany against the plebeian yoke which had been imposed upon them by the National Assembly. He submitted his plan to the Comte d'Artois, and had organised one so extensive as would have proved extremely formidable to the Convention, if the retreat of the Duke of Brunswick, in September 1792, had not damped the ardour of the whole of the west of France, 26, 28. then ready to break out into insurrection.1 1 Beauch. i. cruelty with and general Still the organisation continued, and he had contrived 13. to engage not only all Brittany, but the greater part of the Excessive gentlemen of La Vendée, in the cause, when his death, which it was occasioned by a paroxysm of grief for the execution of suppressed, Louis, cut him off in the midst of his ripening schemes, indignation thereby and proved an irreparable loss to the Royalist party, by excited. depriving it of the advantages which otherwise would have arisen from simultaneous and concerted operations on both banks of the Loire. The conspiracy was discovered after his death, and twelve of the noblest gentlemen in Brittany perished on the same day, in thirteen minutes, under the same guillotine. They all behaved with the utmost constancy, refused the assistance of the constitutional clergy, and after tenderly embracing at the foot of the scaffold, expired, exclaiming, "Vive le Roi!" One young lady of 2 Beauch. i. rank and beauty, Angelique Désilles, was condemned by 34, 63, 70.° mistake for her sister-in-law, for whom she was taken.2 2 CHAP. She refused to let the error be divulged, and died with serenity, the victim of heroic affection. XII. 1793. 14. These severities excited the utmost indignation among The levy of all the Royalists in the west of France. Their feelings, occasions an with difficulty suppressed during the winter of 1792, broke 300,000men insurrec tion. out into open rebellion in consequence of the levy of three hundred thousand men ordered by the Convention in February 1793. The attempt to enforce this obnoxious measure occasioned a general resistance, which broke out without any previous concert, at the same time, over the whole country. The chief points of the revolt were St Florent in Anjou, and Châlons in Lower Poitou; at the former of which places the young men, headed by Jacques Cathelineau, defeated the Republican detachment intrusted with the execution of the decree of the Convention, and made themselves masters of a piece of cannon. This celebrated leader, having heard of the revolt at St Florent, was strongly moved by the recital, and addressing five peasants who surrounded him :-"We shall be ruined," he exclaimed, "if we remain inactive; the country will be Lac. xi. 47. crushed by the Republic. We must all take up arms." Vend. i. 67, The six set out amidst the tears of their wives and children, and fearlessly commenced a war with a power which the kings of Europe were unable to subdue.1 March 10. Guerres des 72. Beauch. i. 89, 90. 15. A few days after, the insurrection assumed a more Fifty thou serious aspect at Chollet, which was attacked by several thousand armed peasants; the Republicans opposed a March 14. vigorous resistance, but they were at length overwhelmed sand men are soon in arms. by the number and resolution of the insurgents. An incident on that occasion marked in a singular manner the novel character of the war. In the line of retreat which the Republicans followed, was placed a representation of our Saviour on Mount Calvary, and this arrested the progress of the victors, for all the peasants, as they passed the holy spot, fell on their knees before the images, and addressed a prayer, with uplifted hands, before they resumed the pursuit. This continued even under a severe XII. 1793. fire from the national guards; the peasants threw them- CHAP. selves on their knees within twenty-five paces of the post occupied by the enemy, and bared their bosoms to the fatal fire, as if courting death in so holy a cause. When they made themselves masters of the town, instead of indulging in pillage or excesses of any sort, they flocked in crowds to the churches to return thanks to God; and contented themselves with the provisions which were voluntarily brought to them by the inhabitants. Everywhere the insurrection bore the same character; the indignities offered to the clergy were its exciting cause, and a mixture of courage and devotion formed its peculiar character. In a few days fifty thousand men were in a state of insurrection in the four departments of La Vendée; but on the ap- Jom.iii.390. proach of Easter the inhabitants all returned to their Beauch. i. homes to celebrate their devotions; and a Republican Th column, despatched from Angers, traversed the whole Guerres des country without meeting with any opposition, or finding 76. an enemy on their road,1 1 Laroch. 49. 95, 97, 102. 171, 172. Vend. i. 74, ers are After the Easter solemnities were over, the peasants 16. assembled anew; but they now felt the necessity of Their leadhaving some leaders of a higher rank to direct their appointed. movements, and went to the chateaus to ask the few gentlemen who remained in the country to put themselves at their head. These were not long in answering the appeal: M. de Lescure, de Larochejaquelein, Bonchamp, Stofflet, d'Elbée, undertook the dangerous duty of directing the tenantry over which they had most influence; while the brave Cathelineau, who, though only a charioteer, had already, by his successful enterprise, gained the confidence of the peasantry, was made commander-in-chief— names since immortalised in the rolls of fame, which long opposed an invincible barrier to the progress of revolution, and acquired only additional lustre, and shone with a purer light, from the sufferings and disasters which pre-2 Laroch. 49. ceded their fall.2 When the peasants of the neighbouring parishes assem XII. 1793. 17. Laroche CHAP. bled to put themselves under Henri de Larochejaquelein, he addressed them in these memorable words :-"My friends, if my father was here he would be worthy of your Henry de confidence: I am but a youth, but I hope to show myself jaquelein. worthy of commanding you by my courage. If I advance, follow me; if I retreat, kill me; if I fall, avenge me." The peasants answered him with acclamations; but their arms and equipments were far from corresponding to the spirit by which they were animated. Most of them had no other weapons but scythes, pikes, and sticks; not two hundred fusils were to be found among many thousand men. Sixty pounds of powder, for blasting rocks, discovered in the hands of a miner, formed their whole ammunition. The skill and intrepidity of their chief, however, supplied every deficiency. He led them next day to attack a Republican detachment at Aubiers, and, by disposing them behind the hedges, kept up so 67. Jom. murderous a fire upon the enemy, that they wavered, Bonch. 41. upon which he rushed forward at the head of the most resolute, and drove them from the field with the loss of two pieces of cannon.1 1 Laroch. 66, iii. 390. Beauch. i. 141. 18. First conflicts, and great activity in the country. La Vendée soon became the theatre of innumerable conflicts, in all of which the tactics and success of the insurgents were nearly the same. An inconceivable degree of activity immediately prevailed over the whole country. The male population were all in insurrection, or busily engaged in the manufacture of arms; the shepherds converted their peaceful huts into workshops, where nothing was heard but strokes of the hammer, and the din of warlike preparation. Instruments of husbandry were rudely transformed into hostile weapons; formed for the support of life, they became the instruments of its destruction. Agriculture at the same time was not neglected, it was intrusted to the women and children. But if fortune proved adverse, and the hostile columns approached, they, Jom.iii.390. too, left their homes, and flew to the field of battle,2 to stimulate the courage of their husbands, stanch their 2 Bonch. 43. wounds, or afford them shelter from the pursuit of their CHAP. enemies. XII. 19. ants' mode The method of fighting pursued by this brave but 1793. motley assemblage was admirably adapted both to the The peasspirit by which they were animated, and the peculiar of fighting. nature of the district in which the contest was conducted. Their tactics consisted in lining the numerous hedges with which the fields were enclosed, and remaining unseen till the Republicans had got fairly enveloped by their forces ; they then opened a fire at once from every direction, and with such fatal accuracy, that a large proportion of the enemy was generally struck down by the first discharge. This thicket species of warfare continued till the Republican ranks began to fall into confusion; upon which the peasants leaped from their places of concealment with loud cries, and, headed by their chiefs, rushed upon the artillery. The bravest took the lead; fixing their eyes on the cannon's mouth, they prostrated themselves on the ground the moment they saw the flash; and rising up when the sound was heard, ran forward with the utmost rapidity to the battery, where the cannoneers, if they had not taken to flight, were generally bayoneted at their guns. In these exploits the chiefs always led the way; this was not merely the result of a buoyant courage, but of considera- 1 Laroch.66, tion and necessity; the Vendeans were in that stage of 68. Beauch. society when ascendency is acquired by personal daring, Jom.iii.391. and the soldiers have no confidence in their chiefs, if they 43. are not before them in individual prowess.1 i. 186, 187. Bonchamp, confusion of Vendean Although the Vendeans took up arms for the royal 20. cause, the most perfect confusion of ranks pervaded their General forces. High and low, rich and poor, were, at the com- ranks in the mencement of the war, alike ignorant of the military art. force The soldiers were never drilled, a limited number of them only having been habituated to the use of fire-arms. In this extremity, the choice of the men fell on the most intrepid or skilful of their number, without much attention to superiority of station. A brave peasant, a shopkeeper |