XII. 1793. 1 Jom. iii. CHAP. his men behind the waggons, Henri de Larochejaquelein assailed the Republican camp on the other side, where it was protected by a rampart and ditch. Finding that the soldiers hesitated to cross the fosse, he took off his hat, threw it into the ditch, and exclaiming, "Who will get it for me?" plunged in himself, and was the first to seize it, followed by the soldiers, who now broke through in great numbers, escaladed the rampart, and entered the town." 396. La roch. 137. Th. v. 50. Beauch. i. 204. Followed by sixty foot-soldiers, he traversed the streets, crossed the bridges of the Loire, planted cannon on them to prevent the return of the Republicans, and pursued them for a considerable distance on the road to Tours. General Coustard, who commanded the Republicans on the heights of Bournan, was now cut off from all communication with the remainder of the army, and he took the bold resolution to enter Saumur, taking the victorious Royalists in rear. For this purpose, it was necessary to cross the bridge, where the Vendeans had established a battery which commanded the passage. Coustard ordered a regiment of cuirassiers, supported by the volunteers of "Where are you sending Orleans, to storm the battery. "To death," replied Coustard; us ?" said the soldiers. "the safety of the Republic requires it." The brave cuirassiers charged at the gallop, and carried the guns; but the Orleans volunteers disbanded under the fire, and they were forced to relinquish them to the Royalists. While these advantages were gained on their side, M. de Lescure had succeeded in rallying his soldiers, who, by falling on their faces when the artillery was discharged, succeeded in capturing the redoubts opposed to them, while Stofflet broke into the town, and completed the victory. The trophies of the Vendeans in this great victory, more important by far than any yet gained over the Republicans by the allied sovereigns, were eighty pieces of cannon, ten thousand muskets, and eleven thousand prisoners, with the loss only of sixty men killed, and four hundred wounded. On the following day, the XII. castle surrendered, with fourteen hundred men and all the CHAP. artillery which it contained. This success gave them the command of both banks of the Loire. The Royalists 1793. shaved the heads of their prisoners, and sent them back to the Republicans on no other condition than that of not again serving against La Vendée; an illusory condi- 1 Lac. xii. tion, speedily violated by the bad faith of their antago- Jom.iii.396. nists. This humanity was the more remarkable, as at Laroch.137, this period the Republicans had already commenced their Th. v. 50. inhuman system of massacring their prisoners, and all 204, 208. taken in arms against the Convention.1 31, 32, 33. 138, 141. Beauch, i. 47. created er-in-chief. After the capture of Saumur, the opinion of the council of generals was divided as to the course which Cathelineau they should pursue; but at length they were determined commandby the consideration of the great advantages of the possession of Nantes, which would open up a communication with England, and serve as a depot and base for future operations up the course of the Loire, and, in consequence, it was resolved to attack that town. This resolution in the end proved fatal to the Royalist cause, by turning their Grand Army from the road to Paris, where it might have arrived, and stifled the reign of blood in its cradle, in the first moments of alarm following the taking of Saumur. Nevertheless it was ably conceived in a military point of view, as it was evident that the course of the Loire formed the line of the Royalist operations, and that Nantes was indispensable to their security. The day after the battle, M. Bonchamp arrived with his division, five thousand strong; while two noble young men, Charles Beaumont d'Autichamp and the Prince of Talmont, also joined the Royalist cause. At the same time the supreme command was given, by the council of generals, Beauch. i. to the peasant Cathelineau-a striking proof of the dis-210, 212, interested magnanimity which distinguished the noble Th. v. 50. chiefs of the army; while, by a strange contrast, Biron, a peer of France, and son of a marshal, led the Repub- 125. lican forces.2 215, 219. Jom. iii. 397, 399. Lac. xiii. CHAP. XII. 1793. M. Bonchamp, who was gifted with the true military genius, strongly urged a descent into Brittany, to obtain a communication with the ocean, and thereafter an immePlan of the diate advance to Paris; and if this plan could have been chiefs at this adopted, it might have led to incalculable results. 48. Vendean period. But the other leaders, though brave and able men, were not equally penetrated with the necessity of striking at the decisive moment at the heart of their enemies; and, besides, great difficulty was anticipated in prevailing on the peasants to undertake so distant an expedition, or believe that anything could be required of them out of sight of their beloved Bocage. It was resolved, therefore, to descend the Loire to Nantes, in order to secure a firm footing on the sea-coast, and open a communication with England, after which, it was thought, more distant operations might with greater safety be attempted. A garrison having been left in Saumur, to maintain the passage of the Loire, the Grand Army under Cathelineau, 1 Beauch. i. after occupying Angers, which was hastily abandoned roch. 153, by the Republicans, advanced towards Nantes by the xii. 127. right bank of the river; while Charette, who had twenty Th. v. 66, thousand men under his command, was invited to cooperate in the attempt on the left.1 238. La 154. Lac. 67. 49. in their at tempt on Nantes. During the march, however, the ardour of the peasants The Royal sensibly diminished. They had been long absent from ists defeated home, and lamented the interruption of their agricultural labours; nor could anything persuade them that, after having gained so many victories, it was necessary to attempt the reduction of so distant a place as Nantes. Great numbers left their colours, and returned to their fields; and when the main army approached that city, it hardly amounted to ten thousand combatants. The hour of attack was fixed at two o'clock on the morning of the 29th June, and Charette, on his side, commenced the assault at that hour; but the army of Cathelineau, having been detained ten hours before the little town of Nort, did not arrive till ten. They were there arrested by a few June 29. hundred of the national guard, who fought with heroic CHAP. XII. valour. Notwithstanding this delay, the united forces 1793. 1 commenced the attack with great vigour, and Cathelineau had actually penetrated, at the head of the bravest of his troops, into the town, when on the Place d'Armes he was severely wounded by a ball in the breast. The peasants, in despair, carried him out of the town, and abandoned Lac. xii. all the advantages they had gained. In the end, although roch. 153, the combat continued for eighteen hours, the want of leader rendered the courage of the soldiers of no avail, and the enterprise failed.1 a 127. La 155. Th. v. 69, 70. Beauch. i. 238, 348. 50. Catheli neau. This check proved extremely prejudicial to the Vendean cause. The army was dissolved in an instant. The brave Death of Cathelineau was disabled by his wound; officers, soldiers, hastily threw themselves into boats and recrossed the Loire; the right bank was entirely deserted, and the men in groups of twenty and thirty straggled homewards. After an interval of a fortnight this noble chief expired, to the inexpressible regret of both the leaders and soldiers, and carried with him to the grave the best hopes of the re-establishment of the Royalist cause. The death of the commander was announced by a peasant, a neighbour of the deceased, to the anxious group who surrounded July 14. the house where he breathed his last, in these simple 156, 174. words "The good Cathelineau has restored his spirit 252, 253. to Him who gave it to avenge his glory."" 2 Laroch. Beauch. the Bocage mann, and While these events were in progress on the side of 51. Nantes, a formidable invasion by disciplined troops and Invasion of able generals was defeated in the Bocage. Westermann, by Westerthe celebrated chief of the Jacobin insurgents at Paris on its defeat. the 10th August, having organised what he called a German Legion, from soldiers trained in the regular wars on the Rhenish frontier, and entertaining the most supreme contempt for the insurgents, penetrated, during the absence of the Grand Army of the Royalists at Nantes, into the heart of La Vendée. He made himself master in the first instance of Parthenay and Amaillou, VOL. II. 2 s XII. 1793. June 20. CHAP. which he reduced to ashes, and burnt Clisson, the chateau of M. de Lescure. The leaders fled to Châtillon, where the Supreme Royalist Council was assembled; but this last refuge was soon after invaded by Westermann, who burned to the ground the castle of La Durbellière, the domain of M. de Larochejaquelein. But here terminated the success of this enterprise. M. de Lescure had 1 Th. v. 121, 122. Beauch. i. 257-264. 52. generalissi feats Biron's apprised the other chiefs of the danger, and they were now advancing by forced marches to his aid. Stofflet and Bonchamp arrived with their divisions, while the tocsin roused the inhabitants of the surrounding parishes; and an able attack, directed by Lescure, who was perfectly acquainted with the country, proved completely successful. In little more than an hour two-thirds of Westermann's army were destroyed; and the fugitives who escaped owed their salvation to the humanity of the very general whose chateau they had just destroyed. Westermann, with the utmost difficulty, escaped out of the Bocage with a few followers, and was in the end sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and perished on the scaffold.1 After Cathelineau's death, M. d'Elbée was appointed M. d'Elbée generalissimo, and the utmost efforts of all the chiefs were is appointed exerted to reassemble the army. Such was the dismo, who de- interestedness of the other leaders, that Bonchamp, invasion. qualified above all others for the situation, made his own officers vote for his rival. Meanwhile Biron, having collected fifty thousand troops, commenced a regular invasion of the Bocage in four divisions, extending from the Loire to the Sèvre. This inroad was at first attended with success. The Royalists, with twenty-five thousand men, attacked General Labarollière, who, with fifteen thousand, was established at Martigné-Briand; but after an obstinate engagement they were defeated, and retired to Coron. Thither they were pursued by Santerre, who deemed himself now secure of conquest: but a dreadful reverse awaited him. The tocsin was sounded in all the parishes; the curate of St Laud, who eminently dis Aug. 13. |