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 .1 1:
 
 THE LOYALISTS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE WAR OF LA VENDEE.
 
 This book was originally published under the 
 title of "BEHIND THE HEDGES," but as this 
 did not give an adequate description of the 
 subject of the volume, it has now been altered 
 to " THE LOYALISTS."
 
 fe wtyy&j-a 
 &> 
 
 //l/?^.y
 
 TCHING FOR HER BROTHERS.
 
 THE LOYALISTS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE WAR IN LA VENDEE. 
 
 BY 
 
 MADAME DE WITT, 
 
 THE TRANSLATION EDITED BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE HEIR OK REDCLVFFE." 
 
 WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 FREDERICK WARNE & CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK.
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 5 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 [HE LOYALISTS" tells the story of 
 the heroic revolt of La Vendee and 
 its piteous overthrow. The accuracy of historical 
 knowledge in all the sketches is great, and it 
 is hoped that they may serve to vivify the facts 
 and dates that young people are called upon 
 
 to learn. 
 
 C. M. YONGE.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER FAGK 
 
 I- *793> I794- THE CONSCRIPTION ... 9 
 
 II. LA VENDEE ASTIR 1 8 
 
 III. THE GENERAL RISING 28 
 
 IV. THE CAPTURE 36 
 
 V. THE GROCER'S LODGING 43 
 
 VI. A MOURNFUL TRYST . '. . . . 55 
 
 VII. THE AMBUSCADE 62 
 
 VIII. AT BRESSUIRE . . .' . - . . 67 
 
 IX. THE RETURN TO CLISSON . . . . 77 
 
 X. THE RISING 88 
 
 XI. THE CAPTURE OF THOUARS .... 94 
 
 XII. AT THE GREEN FARM . , . . , 103 
 
 XIII. REVERSE AND RECOVERY . . . .107 
 
 XIV. PIERRE'S ADVENTURES . . -.. . . 117 
 
 XV. SAUMUR 125 
 
 XVI. THE ADVANCE TO NANTES 129 
 
 XVII. CHEQUERED FORTUNE 143 
 
 XVIII. DISASTER . 150 
 
 XIX. THE HOSPITAL 157 
 
 XX. THE PASSAGE OF THE LOIRE . . . l68
 
 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I7931 794. THE CONSCRIPTION. 
 
 I|T was evening, and already the shades of 
 night were spreading themselves over the 
 country ; the great hedgerow trees, stripped 
 of their branches, reared their black trunks and leafless 
 heads above the holly and hazel bushes, while the silence 
 of the valley was only broken by the barking of some 
 dogs answering one another from farm to farm. 
 
 At the door of one farm, a young girl leaning forward, 
 and holding on to the door-post with one hand, was 
 listening to the distant sounds and trying to see through 
 the gathering gloom. 
 
 " They are not coming," she said, turning half-round, 
 " and it is already late. Good heavens ! what can they 
 have done down there ? " 
 
 " I can tell you what they have not done," and a pale
 
 lo THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 woman, lying at the back of the room in a great bed 
 with green curtains, with difficulty raised herself on her 
 elbow. " They have not drawn, I can answer for it." 
 
 "Ah!" cried the young girl, and stepped out into the 
 courtyard, where she could listen better. One could 
 hear a confused sound of voices echoing in the distance, 
 and one could perceive from time to time lanterns 
 shining between the hedges. " There they are ! " she 
 said. " They are talking very loud : all the boys are 
 together. I hope they are not coming here : Pierre and 
 Jacques told us all about it when they came to bed." 
 
 "Take out the bread," said the mother, in a sharp 
 voice, " and draw a bottle of wine." 
 
 "They have had supper already at Bressuire," ob- 
 jected the girl. 
 
 " Do what I tell you." 
 
 And the modest meal was soon placed on the table. 
 
 The sick woman had raised herself, and was leaning 
 against her pillows ; two red spots upon her cheeks re- 
 placed their usual pallor. Her bright eyes in the sockets, 
 deepened by pain, were fixed upon the door. 
 
 Marthe Marie still looked out into the darkness, 
 
 "There they are, coming out of the leasowes," she said. 
 " I see the lights : they are singing in chorus ; I can re- 
 cognise Pierre's voice ; the numbers are already smaller, 
 Now there are only the boys of this neighbourhood : 
 those from Aubri and Echaubroigne have gone home.
 
 COMING BACK FROM THE TOWN. 11 
 
 There they are, before the crucifix : they are not singing 
 now ; they will soon be here. Here they are, mother ! " 
 And she went in, leaving the door open behind her. 
 
 Ten or twelve young people followed her, and entered 
 almost as soon as she did the kitchen of the farm. At 
 their head were the two sons of the house. 
 
 " What have you done ? " asked their mother, raising 
 herself in her bed. 
 
 "Not much," answered Jacques, who had thrown his 
 broad-brimmed hat on the table ; " we talked, and that 
 was all." 
 
 " And you have not drawn ? " 
 
 " No, they did not ask us do so ; it was only to come 
 to an understanding. They say that there was some 
 noise at Chollet yesterday ; but at Bressuire all went off 
 quietly." 
 
 " For the present !" And the mother still looked at her 
 two sons. 
 
 Marthe Marie was cutting the bread, and had not 
 raised her eyes. At length she asked, 
 
 " Were there many people in the town ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! all the townspeople and lads from all the 
 parishes : we were much honoured. There was a dragoon 
 there," and he looked at his sister maliciously, " who 
 asked us about everybody at home. He looked uncom- 
 monly well in his uniform." 
 
 " Ah, yes, the son of Gady the grocer," said one of the
 
 12 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 young men, laughing. " His father has famous brandy 
 all the same." 
 
 Marthe was looking down : her mother watched her 
 silently ; then turning towards her sons 
 
 " And when will the assembly be ? " she said. 
 
 " On the Fourteenth," said Jacques, shortly. 
 
 " And what will they do ? " 
 
 " I know nothing about it : I shall not draw. M. le 
 Cure" has forbidden it." 
 
 " He will not draw ! he will not draw ! " repeated the 
 young people, with increasing excitement. 
 
 The sick woman cried, raising herself with an effort, 
 
 " Pierre and Jacques, if ever you draw for the conscrip- 
 tion, if you touch a gun in obedience to those who have 
 taken away our priests, and have put us in danger of dying 
 without sacraments, I give you my curse beforehand. Re- 
 member this, all of you ! " And her burning eyes rested 
 on her daughter, who had bent down her head as if to 
 receive a blow. 
 
 "You may be easy, mother," cried the two young men. 
 " If we take up a gun, it will be for something very diffe- 
 rent ; and do not be frightened, you shall have M. le 
 Curd in time." 
 
 " Jacques ! " cried Marthe, and she pushed away her 
 brothers, passing through the crowd of young peasants, 
 friends of the family, who were still eating around the 
 table, " don't you see that mother has fainted ? "
 
 A DEATH-BED. 13 
 
 The invalid had indeed fallen back on her pillows : her 
 excitement had worn her out, and she had fainted. 
 
 " Where is M. le Cure* this evening ? " said the young 
 people among themselves. 
 
 " I don't know, but they are sure to know at the Heath 
 Farm ; it is thence that he goes to hide himself." 
 
 " I '11 go there ! " said a strong-looking young man, 
 with broad shoulders, who had not yet spoken ; and all 
 the peasants went out with him. 
 
 Marthe, with frightened eyes and an aching heart, did 
 nothing to restore her mother : the curse seemed to be 
 already weighing upon her. Jacques and Pierre looked 
 at her with that helplessness which is common to rustics 
 in the presence of illness : each clenched his hand tight 
 as he watched that pale face, and those limbs already 
 stiffened by a death-like chill. 
 
 Suddenly Jacques stretched out his hand towards the 
 crucifix. 
 
 "I swear," said he, "by the water of my baptism, 
 never to touch a gun, but to defend the good priests and 
 to help honest people, if my mother may but open her 
 eyes, and give us once more her blessing 1 " 
 
 " Amen ! " said Pierre. 
 
 At that same moment their mother opened her eyes, 
 
 " I thought that all was over," she said. " Has any 
 one gone to fetch M. le Cure ? " 
 
 He had just come iri. By Unlooked-for good fortuity
 
 I4 THE LOYALISTS, 
 
 Joseph Bumeau, as he crept from hiding-place to hiding- 
 place, had almost immediately met the cure, the former 
 pastor of the parish of St. Aubin, whose place had been 
 filled by a " Constitutional " priest, who lived in the par- 
 sonage and said Mass all alone in the church, while all 
 the people hastened to the woods or to some pilgrimage- 
 chapel, where the cure whom they loved celebrated Mass 
 for them. 
 
 The old priest raised his hand as he entered : " Peace 
 be to this house," he said. Then looking at the sick 
 woman, he began to pray. The two young men knelt, 
 while Marthe had sunk down before the crucifix. 
 
 The dying woman had received the last sacraments : 
 a profound peace was visible in her countenance; her 
 power of speech was almost gone ; but she could still 
 hear, and her searching glance followed all her children's 
 movements. Marthe had come near her : the two bro- 
 thers, standing at the back of the kitchen, talked to the 
 priest, who spoke in a low voice. 
 
 " At St. Florent, do you say, M. le Cure" ? The day 
 before yesterday ? " 
 
 " Yes ; they took a cannon : the papers of the district 
 were burnt, and the public money pillaged. They say 
 that the lads of all that part of the country are going to 
 march." 
 
 "They are a long way off!" cried Jacques, forgetting 
 in his excitement the state in which his mother was;
 
 UNCLE JEAN'S DEATH. 15 
 
 "but if they do not march towards us, I shall certainly 
 go to join them. They have not forgotten in these parts 
 what was done to them two years ago, when you were 
 driven from the parsonage, M. le Cure." 
 
 The priest stretched out his hand with a gesture full 
 of authority and of gentleness. 
 
 "Do not think of the injuries done us, my children," 
 he said : " the Lord Jesus Christ has taken care of His 
 servants ; but do not stain your hands with a wicked war- 
 fare, fighting by the side of the murderers of your King." 
 
 Pierre had glanced towards the bed where his mother, 
 whiter than the falling snow, was lying back on her pil- 
 lows, following all their movements with her eyes. 
 
 " I am sure that she is thinking of my uncle Jean," he 
 said, in a low voice and with a solemn accent, " when she 
 looks like that. I know well that she still sees him at 
 the door of the ' Three Willows/ at Echaubroigne, 
 pierced through and through with blows from pitchforks. 
 He had just received the twenty-second blow : they 
 cried out, ' Give yourself up ! ' He said, ' Give me back 
 my God ! ' and died. My mother has never forgotten it." 
 
 " Nor have I," said the priest, raising his hat. " Poor 
 Jean ! Yet I had told him that no one could take away 
 his God." 
 
 The dying woman had raised her heavy hand, her lips 
 were moving, and her children gathered round her. 
 
 " Do as Jean did," she said. " I give you my blessing."
 
 1 6 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 She closed her eyes. The priest, kneeling, said the 
 prayers for the dying. Marthe had risen to close more 
 completely the eyelids of the dead woman, and was 
 sobbing silently at the foot of the bed. The two young 
 men rose from their knees. 
 
 " I shall go to Clisson to-morrow, to hear what M. Henri 
 says," said Jacques. 
 
 " I will go with you," said Pierre. " It is a great pity 
 that he is not here : we could have gone to him this 
 evening." 
 
 The priest looked at the clock. 
 
 "It is just one o'clock," he said. "I will go back to 
 the Heath Farm : they are expecting me there for Mass 
 at the break of day in St. Peter's Glade. Shall you be 
 there, my children ? " 
 
 "It is a long way out of our road," said Jacques, 
 hesitating. 
 
 Marthe looked up. 
 
 "And afterwards ? When will M. le Cure* come back 
 here?" 
 
 " Wednesday ? " asked the cure, fixing his gaze on the 
 young men. 
 
 " Yes," they said, " we shall have spoken to M. Henri 
 as she wished, and we shall be able to bury her ; in the 
 meantime Marthe can watch here." 
 
 Marthe shuddered, but said nothing. 
 
 *' Do as Jean did," her mother had said with her last
 
 1HE 
 
 breath ; and her curse rested on those who had joined 
 themselves to the other side ! 
 
 The young girl had fallen again on her knees, her 
 head buried in her hands ; and she was still praying 
 when the cure left the farm, accompanied by her two 
 brothers.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LA VENDEE ASTIR. 
 
 [HE levy of three hundred thousand men, or- 
 dered by the National Assembly, troubled 
 the castles as much as the cottages. Poitou 
 and Anjou were inhabited by many gentlemen, of whom 
 the greater part had not emigrated, but had left the 
 Court or the army, to hide themselves in the country 
 among the peasants, who were devoted to them, and who 
 thought on all subjects as they did. 
 
 The towns, small and few in number, had felt the 
 influence of the Revolution. The Republicans had the 
 majority within their walls, and the young men willingly 
 offered themselves for the conscription, carried away by 
 that warlike impulse which was passing over France like 
 a whirlwind, bearing all at once to the frontier enough 
 soldiers to defend their native land and to carry the war 
 into the enemy's country. All those who joined the army 
 did not approve of what was going on ; many did not 
 understand it. The Reign of Terror had begun at Paris,
 
 ANGER OF THE PEOPLE. 19 
 
 and was already extending into the provinces ; but the 
 national feeling was roused : France must be defended. 
 Had they been left to themselves, the peasants of Poitou 
 and Anjou would perhaps have obeyed as others did, and 
 turned against foreigners the patient courage which they 
 displayed against the Republican soldiers. 
 
 But a mortal blow had been dealt to them. Their 
 beloved priests had been torn away from them their 
 priests to whom their confidence was given and their 
 place had been filled by strangers who had submitted to 
 the Republic, which was then beginning to make pro- 
 fessions of open unbelief; and the religious feelings, which 
 were of more weight than any others with these honest 
 and gentle people, were henceforward roused against the 
 new power. The trial and death of the King had moved 
 their anger ; they were irritated and uneasy. The pil- 
 grimages had assumed a more important form ; people 
 flocked from all the villages to the venerated places, 
 their tapers burning, and the cross before them ; but the 
 parishes which were unhappy enough to possess a " Con- 
 stitutional " cure", an " intruder," as they were called, often 
 bore their cross veiled in crape. One of the proscribed 
 priests said Mass, and when the authorities of the neigh- 
 bouring town tried to break up the gathering, the peasants 
 grasped their knotty sticks more firmly ; for they were 
 already prepared to die for their clergy. 
 
 It was in this frame of mind that the order for thg 
 
 22
 
 20 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 conscription found the inhabitants of Poitou and Anjou. 
 The peasants consulted their priests, who everywhere 
 advised them not to obey the commands of the Republic. 
 This advice agreed with the interests of the labourers, 
 who were distressed at the idea of seeing the young men, 
 the support and pride of their families, leave them. It 
 was resolved not to draw for the conscription, and with 
 the refusal came the violences of resistance. Poitou and 
 Anjou had already risen in ten places when Jacques and 
 Pierre Goureau, at the break of day, took the road to the 
 Castle of Clisson, where M. Henri de la Rochejaquelein, 
 the son of their seigneur, had remained with his cousin 
 and friend, M. de Lescure, when they both came back 
 from Paris after the massacre of the loth of August. 
 
 Clisson was built in a picturesque position, on a rock 
 surrounded by woods; streams falling in cascades through 
 the trees murmured softly to the first rays of the sun. 
 Silence was still reigning in the great courts of the castle. 
 No one was thinking of the hunt, the usual pleasure of 
 the Poitevin nobles. Men and horses were still asleep ; 
 the dogs barked feebly in their kennels ; some grooms 
 alone began to come out of the stables, yawning and 
 stretching their arms. Anxiety had not yet reached 
 Clisson : they were peacefully sleeping on the edge of 
 the precipice. 
 
 The servants were sleeping, but the masters were 
 watching. The lamps which had been burning all night
 
 HENRI DE LA ROCHEJACQUELEIN. 21 
 
 threw a feeble light on the great saloon, where all the 
 guests of the castle were gathered together, dressed as 
 they had been on the previous evening, anxious and agi- 
 tated. M. de Lescure, standing by the fireplace, listened 
 in silence, with his usual calm gravity, to the arguments 
 of his cousin Henri. 
 
 " It is impossible !" the young man was saying eagerly. 
 " I will not draw. I cannot fight either against the 
 emigrants or against the peasants of our villages, if they 
 are beginning to rise as is said. It would be better to 
 perish." 
 
 " You will not draw ? you are quite right," said M. de 
 Lescure ; " it would be disgraceful to fight against one's 
 friends. But I am commander of the National Guard : 
 they are going to call me out, with all the men who 
 belong to the castle, and what am I to do ? " 
 
 " You must refuse to march ! " cried M. de la Roche- 
 jacquelein, " and I will come with you." 
 
 M. de Lescure grasped his friend's hand. 
 
 Henri hesitated. 
 
 In the chimney-corner was seated Madame de Donis- 
 san, the mother of Madame de Lescure. She listened to 
 the conversation of the two cousins, and the unanimity 
 of all who were present. 
 
 " You are all of one opinion, gentlemen," she said, as 
 though resuming the discussion, " rather to die than to be 
 dishonoured. I approve of this courage ; it is resolved
 
 22 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 upon." Then, leaning back in her arm-chair, and tightly 
 grasping its arms, " So we must die ! " she said. 
 
 Madame de Lescure was silently pressing closer to her 
 mother's side when a servant opened the door. 
 
 " There are below two young men from St. Aubin, 
 asking to see M. Henri," he said, greatly surprised at the 
 sight of the company gathered together in the saloon. 
 
 " Let them come up," said M. de Lescure ; and Jacques 
 and Pierre came in, holding their hats in their hands, 
 only expecting to see M. Henri. 
 
 He came forward to meet them. 
 
 " How is your mother ? " he asked Jacques. 
 
 The peasant looked up. 
 
 " She died last night," he said, in a low hoarse voice. 
 
 Henri shuddered. " And how do you come to be 
 here ? " he cried, with surprise. 
 
 "Marthe is with her," answered Pierre. "She said 
 when she was dying, ' Do as Jean did,' our uncle, who 
 was killed two years ago at Echaubroigne. You re- 
 member about it, M. Henri ? And since they say that 
 the lads of St. Florent and of Chollet have taken up their 
 sticks and their guns, rather than draw for the conscrip- 
 tion, we have come to see what you will do. Is it true, 
 sir, what they say at Durbelliere, that you are going on 
 Sunday to draw for the militia at Boisiere, when your 
 peasants are taking up arms because they will not draw ? 
 Come with us, sir: the whole country will obey you-"
 
 THE SUMMONS TO DURBELLIERE. 23 
 
 Henri turned round, looking triumphantly at his 
 cousin ; then stretching out his hand towards the two 
 peasants, 
 
 " I will go with you," he said, " and immediately if you 
 wish it. I will go and order my horse." 
 
 " Oh ! not that, M. Henri," cried Jacques, eagerly. 
 " You will fall in with the patrols of the Blues. We met 
 two of them who were coming from Bressuire. They are 
 frightened down there ; they remember what was done 
 formerly. However, there are no guns there ; they have 
 taken them all away from us. One must go by the by- 
 paths, M. Henri, and we must start at once, for it will be 
 quite six hours before we reach Durbelliere. We came 
 by the straight way, but we cannot go back the same, 
 for you would be arrested." 
 
 M. de Lescure had moved towards his cousin. 
 
 " I will come with you I " he said, with an excitement 
 which was not usual with him. " I could not remain 
 here ! " 
 
 Madame de Lescure had not yet spoken. She now 
 rose. She was young and pretty ; her short-sighted blue 
 eyes gave her an appearance of shrinking timidity. She 
 took her husband's arm. 
 
 "You will not go," she said, in a low voice. "How 
 could you leave us here without you ? " 
 
 He looked at her anxiously, and hesitated. 
 
 " It is impossible 1 " cried Henri. " You are not in my
 
 24 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 position; you are not forced to draw ; your peasants have 
 not risen. We do not even know what this insurrection 
 is. I am going to see if it is anything serious. If there 
 is any reason for rising, you shall come then now, it 
 would be folly." 
 
 His cousin made him no answer : his countenance 
 showed a suppressed eagerness, and the violent struggle 
 within himself. His wife was hanging on his arm, while 
 all the guests of the castle surrounded Henri de la Roche- 
 jacquelcin. A little time before, each one had agreed 
 that resistance would be right; but at the moment of 
 giving the first sign of it, they hesitated they were 
 frightened. 
 
 " If you go with your peasants," said Mdlle. Desessait, 
 the daughter of a friend of M. de Lescure's, who had 
 taken refuge with him, " you will compromise us all ; 
 they will come from Bressuire and put us all in prison." 
 
 Henri was disturbed, and looked at M. de Lescure. 
 
 " I should be miserable if I drew down persecution on 
 you," he said. " I am in your hands, and I will do what- 
 ever you wish." 
 
 "Go," said M. de Lescure; "honour and your prin- 
 ciples call you. I am unhappy enough not to be able to 
 follow you ; but the fear of imprisonment will not tempt 
 me to prevent your doing your duty." 
 
 " Very well. I shall come to deliver you !" cried Henri, 
 with a kindling countenance, and drawing up his slight
 
 TWO REASONS FOR GOING. 25 
 
 and graceful figure, as if he were a chief destined to 
 command and make himself obeyed. " Go down, my 
 friends ; I will follow you," he added, turning to the two 
 peasants, silent spectators of this scene. 
 
 "I thought at one time that we should not get M. 
 Henri to go with us," said Jacques, stumbling on the 
 great stone staircase. 
 
 " Oh, I saw directly in his eyes that he would come," 
 said Pierre. " I only hope he will leave us time enough 
 to eat something in the kitchen." 
 
 The attempts to keep back M. de la Rochejacquelein 
 had begun again. Old men and women were numerous 
 at Clisson, and the danger, which appeared imminent, 
 terrified the timid ones. Henri remained standing with 
 his eyes fixed on the door, anxious, but still determined. 
 
 " It is settled, ladies," said M. de Lescure at length. 
 " His departure is resolved upon : let me beg of you to 
 say no more about it." And he drew his young cousin 
 into the window, to give him some advice. 
 
 The respect which M. de Lescure inspired had closed 
 every one's mouth, and silence reigned in the saloon, 
 when M. de Livray rose in one corner. 
 
 " I will go with M. Henri," he said, suddenly. 
 
 " You, sir ! " cried Madame de Lescure, suppressing 
 her laughter with difficulty. " You will be arrested ! " 
 
 "I will not be taken with you," he said, with horror. 
 "With M. Henri I may be able to get off! "
 
 26 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " I thought that it was in order to fight that you 
 wished to go with Henri," persisted Madame de Lescure. 
 
 Not at all. It is to fly to hide myself." 
 
 " But Henri is suspected ; he is proscribed. They will 
 pursue him, and if he is with you he will not be able to 
 leap over the hedges or cross the ditches : you would be 
 his ruin, and you would ruin yourself with him." 
 
 " When he hears a noise, suppose he were to run away 
 and leave me there ! " 
 
 " Do you think that I am as great a coward as your- 
 self?" said Henri, who had left the embrasure of the 
 window. "If we are surprised, I shall defend myself: 
 we will perish, or be saved, together." 
 
 " He will defend me ! " cried M. de Livray, with joy, 
 " he will defend me ! " And kissing Henri's hand, he 
 turned with a beseeching look to M. de Lescure : " Let 
 me fly, sir : it is God who has given me the means and 
 the desire for flight." 
 
 M. de Lescure concealed his disgust with great diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 "As you please, sir," he answered, shortly. "One 
 more word with you, Henri." 
 
 The farce had succeeded the tragedy. M. de Livray, 
 trembling, shuddering, but triumphant, followed with 
 quick steps the long strides of Henri and of the two 
 peasants ; and the sound of his voice was the last heard 
 from the windows of the castle. He was repeating, as
 
 CONFIDENCE. 
 
 27 
 
 he disappeared behind a hedge which he had had great 
 difficulty in getting over : 
 " He will defend me ! M. Henri will defend me 1 *
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GENERAL RISING. 
 
 [jHILE M. de la Rochejacquelein was crossing 
 the country under the guardianship of his two 
 guides, the popular rising, which had origi- 
 nated with the peasants, was spreading, and was already 
 becoming organized. The young men who had come 
 back triumphant from St. Florent had gone singing to 
 the house of Jacques Cathelineau, a carrier, and pedlar of 
 woollen goods. 
 
 " Are you at home, Jacques ? " they had cried, half 
 opening the door. 
 
 "Here I am!" And Cathelineau came out of the 
 bakehouse where he had been kneading the bread for 
 his family ; his bare arms were covered with flour, and a 
 large white apron was tied round his waist. " What can 
 you be doing here at this time of day ? " 
 
 " We have come back from drawing for the conscrip- 
 tion with a piece of ordnance ! " And still laughing, they 
 related to him the day's events.
 
 THE CARRIERS SUMMONS. 29 
 
 "If you had but seen the splendid blaze that the papers 
 of the district made ! There was fire enough to have 
 baked all your bread." 
 
 Jacques did not laugh. He had untied his apron, and 
 was wiping his arms. 
 
 " Bring my coat," he said to his wife. Then, turning to 
 the young men who were intoxicated with their triumph, 
 "You do not know what you have done," he said to 
 them ; " you have drawn down terrible punishments on 
 this country. They will shoot some, and send the others 
 to the Rhine ; they will burn our houses, and cut off our 
 priests' heads. Now there is no other way open to us : 
 we must revolt, and see what we can do to re-establish 
 order and religion." 
 
 The carrier had drawn himself up ; his usually mild and 
 dreamy countenance was now flashing fire. He looked 
 straight at his young companions, who were astonished 
 and ashamed, but carried away by his words and by the 
 respect with which he inspired them. 
 
 " Good bye, Jeanne ! " said Cathelineau, giving one last 
 look round his cottage. " I am going with them." 
 
 Jeanne did not answer, made no protests. She held 
 her youngest child tight in her arms, while two others 
 clung to her dress. 
 
 " The good God will have pity on you and will protect 
 you ! " he said, in a low voice. And he went hastily out 
 of the cottage, as if he feared that his resolution would 
 be shaken.
 
 30 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 At the name of Jacques Cathelineau, the young men 
 of the neighbouring parishes rose ; a like movement had 
 taken place under the leadership of Stoflet, gamekeeper 
 to M. de Maulevrier, and the two bands united them- 
 selves. The peasants were almost all armed with sticks : 
 very few possessed guns, and even these had no powder ; 
 others bore hatchets and scythes. With such equipments 
 Stoflet marched on Chdllet. Cathelineau had attacked 
 Jalais and Chenille, which had opened their gates to him, 
 and there was a great alarm at Chollet. The women and 
 children did not dare to leave their houses ; for, since the 
 previous evening, a man dressed in a long robe, with bare 
 head and feet, holding in his hand a crucifix with a crown 
 of thorns, had been passing through the streets of the 
 city. Many times people had tried to stop him, but he 
 had disappeared, hiding himself in nooks unknown to the 
 gendarmes ; and suddenly they would hear his prophetic 
 voice ringing out again, 
 
 " Give yourselves up, my good friends ! Give up your 
 arms, or else the town will be given up to fire and 
 blood!" 
 
 " We really must get hold of him ! " said the chief 
 magistrate ; and, beckoning to two gendarmes, the three 
 went forward at the moment when the fanatic, redoubling 
 his cries, and waving a rosary which he wore at his waist, 
 was exhorting the people to pray. The two soldiers 
 placed a hand on each shoulder, and he turned round
 
 THE CHRISTIAN ARMY. 31 
 
 sharply ; the magistrate was going to question him, but 
 he did not give him time for that. 
 
 " Twenty thousand men are marching on you !" he cried. 
 " I am sent to you from God to prevent the bloodshed ! " 
 
 They carried his person away, but his words had 
 everywhere sown the seed of terror. The magistrates 
 had just called together the National Guard : they knew 
 vaguely that there had been gatherings in the country, 
 but the assembly for recruiting had passed in silence, and 
 the authorities thought that they had quieted the sur- 
 rounding parishes by promising that the sons of labouring 
 men should not be sent to the army. A detachment of 
 the " Christian Army," a glorious name which the peasants 
 had assumed, soon came to disturb these hopes. They 
 summoned the town to surrender, promising on this 
 condition to spare persons and goods. 
 
 The Republican enthusiasm was as strong as the re* 
 ligious passion, and the chief magistrate, having read the 
 proclamation signed by Stoflet, turned to the function- 
 aries and the National Guard of Chollet, who were 
 gathered round him. 
 
 "We will not deliberate when the enemy is at our 
 gates," he cried. "Republicans march where danger 
 calls them: they go to meet the approach of rebels. 
 Follow me ! " 
 
 And he commanded a sally to be made against the 
 troops of Stoflet, who were advancing upon the town.
 
 32 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 They obeyed, but the excitement was not general. 
 The inhabitants of Chollet had in the country relations 
 and friends. They feared lest they should see them in 
 the ranks of the insurgents, and they hoped for their 
 protection if the town should fall into their hands. On 
 their part the resistance was feeble, and the Christian 
 Army, forcing tkeir way through the ranks of the National 
 Guard, soon found itself within the walls of Chollet. The 
 castle contained cannon, and the fighting was sharper at 
 that point ; but a certain number of the functionaries had 
 already perished, and a capitulation was made. The 
 prisoners were gathered together in the courtyard of 
 the Town Hall, and placed under strict guard. Stoflet 
 himself watched over the execution of his orders, since 
 the peasants would have willingly allowed the town's- 
 people, who \v sre crowded together in the market-place, 
 to escape. 
 
 It was night. Fires were burning in the streets ; the 
 insurgents were sleeping by them. A certain number 
 had installed themselves in the houses, while the leaders 
 of the troops were assembled in the magistrate's apart- 
 ments, and were discussing the fate of the prisoners, 
 whom they had made appear before them one by one, 
 to undergo a sort of examination. 
 
 "We ought to make an example here," said Stoflet; 
 whose harsh and coarse features spoke a savage triumph. 
 " When they learn what is to be gained by resisting us,
 
 SIXPENCE BAFFLED. 33 
 
 the gates of all the towns will open of their own 
 accord." 
 
 Cathelineau was not there, and the priests who ac- 
 companied Stoflet's troops had not the same influence 
 over him as over the peasants. He was surrounded by 
 some low wretches, the first leaders of a confused move- 
 ment, soon to be replaced by the gentlemen. One of 
 them, who had been nicknamed "Sixpence," strongly 
 backed up Stoflet's words : 
 
 "Yes, yes; let us kill them, and let us pillage the 
 houses. We want money to carry on a war, and it is 
 out of the tradespeoples' purses that we must take it." 
 
 A man, dressed like a miller, with a long whip in his 
 hand and a large hat on his head, rose upon hearing 
 " Sixpence " speak. He took off his hat, and his tonsure 
 revealed his profession. He was the fugitive priest from 
 Baroniere, a village near Chollet. 
 
 " If I hear another word about theft and pillage, I 
 shall leave the army, giving it my malediction," he cried ; 
 "and I shall take away with me its title of Christian, 
 which it will not longer deserve." 
 
 Stoflet was hanging down his head ; two or three of the 
 leaders seconded the priest's words, while " Sixpence " 
 had disappeared behind his companions. 
 
 " See," said the cure, going towards the window of the 
 room. 
 
 The prisoners were assembled in the courtyard. It
 
 34 THE LOYALISTS, 
 
 was daylight, and a cold rain chilled them to the bone ; 
 their hands were tied together, and their pale faces had 
 moved the compassion of the peasants. Not daring to 
 disobey orders and to let them go, and guessing that the 
 chiefs were discussing the question of life or death, a 
 numerous circle of the insurgent soldiers had gathered 
 round the court ; they had knelt down, and were all re- 
 peating their morning prayers, asking God that the life 
 of the prisoners might be spared. 
 
 "They are asking pardon for their enemies of the 
 Father of mercies," said the cure, looking fixedly at those 
 among the leaders who had spoken of the necessity of 
 making an example. 
 
 Every one was moved. 
 
 At the same instant cries were heard at the gates of 
 the city. 
 
 " Bonchamps ! " cried the women and children of 
 Chollet. " M. le Marquis ! " said the peasants from the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 The leaders went out to meet him. Stoflet shrugged 
 his shoulders impatiently, while "Sixpence" and his 
 comrades had disappeared. The priest of Baroniere had 
 run among the first to meet the new-comers. 
 
 " It is God who sends you, M. le Marquis ! " he cried : 
 "come to save the prisoners whom these gentlemen 
 wished very much to shoot." 
 
 " To shoot the prisoners ! " and M. de Bonchamps cast
 
 MERCY. 35 
 
 a firm and calm look around him " to stain, at the very 
 outset of the war, hands which have been consecrated to 
 the service of God and of the King ! You cannot have 
 been thinking of it, my friends. Where would then be 
 the blessing of God on our arms ? That which we are 
 about to attempt is difficult : we cannot even hope for 
 glory : civil wars never give that ; but we are marching 
 'in the name.of God, and for His cause, and He will be 
 able to give us strength and victory : an eternal reward 
 awaits us for our short labours. Let us, then, guard our- 
 selves from committing crimes, and from driving away 
 from ourselves the favour of Heaven. Chollet is ours 
 you have conquered it. Quite enough blood has been 
 already shed ; let us not make a drop to flow needlessly. 
 Let the prisoners be sent in, and let them be treated with 
 humanity. You wish it to be so, gentlemen ? " added the 
 Marquis, turning to the leaders who had preceded him at 
 the head of the insurgent troops, and who yielded in- 
 voluntarily to the ascendancy of a superiority of mind 
 and heart stronger than that of rank. 
 
 " All, sir 1 " said Stoflet, himself conquered ; and the 
 grateful cries of the National Guard joined with the 
 transport of the peasants ; but the genuine Republicans 
 did not shout did not give thanks ; they passed with a 
 gloomy air before the leaders of the insurgents. No one, 
 however, gave any attention to their indignation, for 
 Cathelineau was arriving at the gates of Chollet. 
 
 32
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CAPTURE. 
 
 JHILK the insurrection of Anjou was advancing 
 towards Poitou, which was rising in its turn, 
 the inhabitants of the Castle of Clisson saw 
 with much uneasiness the day of drawing for the con- 
 scription approaching. M. de Lescure's people had gone 
 down to the town in the morning ; the peasants were still 
 calm, for the priest of Boisine had taken the oath, and 
 the surrounding parishes, not being deprived of the priest 
 in whom they trusted, had not been accustomed for 
 several months to disobey the orders of the Government 
 by being present, in the woods and among the rocks, at 
 the Divine Service celebrated by the "good priests," as 
 they were called. 
 
 M. de Lescure had come back to the castle when 
 Mass was ended ; his guests had become fewer, for the 
 step taken by M. de la Rochejacquelein had appeared 
 dangerous to many people. Some had joined him, others 
 had gone to seek a more secure shelter elsewhere ; the
 
 ENTHUSIASM. 37 
 
 women and old men alone had remained at Clisson, and 
 their helplessness and weakness held back M. de Lescure 
 by the strongest bonds. 
 
 People were slowly coming back from Boisine" : three 
 young girls were walking before their mother, talking 
 and laughing among themselves. The eldest of them, 
 Mdlle. Marie Boguet, was more serious than her sisters. 
 
 "If we were obliged to run away," she said, "where 
 should we go to hide ourselves ? " 
 
 " We would not hide ourselves," cried Celeste, gaily ; 
 " we will go with the Christian Army. We will take care 
 of the wounded ; we will make soup for the soldiers. I 
 have borrowed a white apron from the cook, to see what 
 I look like in it ; and I look charming ! " 
 
 "And mamma ?" continued Marie. 
 
 " Mamma would stay with Louise in the hospital ; she 
 will comfort those who are unhappy, and Louise will 
 mend the torn clothes." 
 
 " And our father ? When shall we go to join him ?" 
 
 " Why did our father go away ? " murmured Celeste ; 
 but a feeling of respect did not allow her to speak her 
 thoughts aloud, and she only said, " When we have de- 
 feated the Blues, and replaced the King on his throne, 
 our father will come back, and we shall all be happy 
 together." 
 
 M. de Lescure was standing under the portico. 
 
 "They are only waiting for you to begin breakfast,
 
 3^ THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 young ladies," he said, laughing ; and the girls, ashamed 
 and frightened, running off like fawns, soon disappeared 
 in the great castle. 
 
 M. de Lescure went in after them. 
 
 " Poor children !" he said ; "how can I leave them here 
 without protection ? " 
 
 The rest were at breakfast, and were talking gaily. 
 
 "I am half ashamed that our people should have drawn 
 for the conscription," said Madame de Lescure, "while 
 Henri is away with his peasants." 
 
 " They had no personal dislike to it, my dear," said her 
 husband, gravely ; " and one cannot engage men in an 
 insurrection if their consciences do not speak to them." 
 
 "Oh! if I had said one word at Florent and at Germain, 
 their conscience would have spoken to them," persisted 
 Madame de Lescure. 
 
 " That is to say, that you would have put yours in the 
 place of theirs," answered her husband, who was eating 
 nothing, and whose countenance seemed full of sadness. 
 
 He was gazing listlessly out of a window opposite to 
 him, when suddenly his eyes became fixed. He half rose, 
 then sat down again, murmuring, 
 
 "In a little while!" 
 
 " What have you seen, dear ? " said his wife, who was 
 seated opposite to him, and who had observed his move- 
 ment without seeing his change of countenance. " Do 
 you want anything ? "
 
 THE ARREST. 39 
 
 " No," said M. de Lescure ; but he still continued to 
 look out of window. 
 
 A servant hastily entered the dining-room. 
 
 " The castle is surrounded, M. le Marquis ! " he cried 
 with alarm ; " they are going to arrest us ! " 
 
 " Very well," said M. de Lescure, rising ; " let them 
 carry me off! I am ready. I suppose that the whole 
 house is not implicated." And he went out with his 
 wife to meet the gendarmes, who were only about twenty 
 in number. 
 
 They looked with some surprise at the group of women, 
 old men, and young girls who pressed forward, trembling, 
 to the hall door. 
 
 "It seems to me that all these citizens are not very 
 dangerous to the Republic," murmured the soldiers to 
 each other, " even if they were not good people." 
 
 But the sergeant had advanced towards M. de Lescure, 
 and was holding an open paper : " By order of the chief 
 magistrate, M. and Madame de Lescure, and all other 
 suspected persons who may be found at Clisson, are to 
 be arrested and taken to Bressuire for the greater safety 
 of the Republic." 
 
 M. de Lescure slightly shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I will follow you," he said ; " but what harm can these 
 women and children do ? " 
 
 Madame de Lescure squeezed her husband's arm. 
 
 " Wherever you go, I shall go ! " she said, in a low voice.
 
 40 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " I know it ! " And a tender smile lighted up for an 
 instant the grave face of the Marquis. " But your parents, 
 your daughter ? " 
 
 "The little one is in safety with her nurse ; but my 
 mother ? " 
 
 And she turned towards Madame de Donissan, who 
 was coming down the flight of steps. 
 
 " I shall go with my daughter," she said aloud. 
 
 Madame de Lescure left her husband and ran towards 
 her. 
 
 " No, stay here ! " she besought her in a low voice. 
 " You are not included in the order of arrest : my father 
 shall defend the castle, and protect those who remain 
 in it." 
 
 " Your father ! " And she showed her M. de Donissan 
 by the side of his son-in-law and of M. Bernard de 
 Marigny, his cousin ; both had declared that they would 
 share the fate of M. de Lescure. 
 
 A gendarme had approached. 
 
 " In any case, madame would have had to come, for 
 the order of arrest says ' all suspected persons.' " 
 
 " You wish, then, to deprive me of the pleasure of 
 sacrificing myself for my daughter ? " said Madame de 
 Donissan, in so tender and dignified a manner that the 
 gendarme, touched with pity, did not answer. 
 
 " Her eyes shine like diamonds," he said, and returned 
 to join his comrades.
 
 DISGUISE. 41 
 
 All the horses had been taken away a month before 
 for the service of the Republic, and oxen were harnessed 
 to the carriage. The ranks of the guests of the castle had 
 become thinner : some people had pleaded their health, 
 others had disguised themselves as servants, while Ma- 
 dame Boguet and her daughters remained standing in 
 one corner. 
 
 "Are those little citizens suspected ?" said a gendarme. 
 
 The sergeant hesitated. He did not belong to that 
 part of the country, for they did not dare to trust the 
 arrest of M. de Lescure to the Bressuire regiments, and 
 they had waited for the arrival of the reinforcements 
 which had been called out against the rebels to execute 
 the order which had been given ten days before. 
 
 " I will come with you," said Madame Boguet, suddenly 
 making up her mind, and advancing towards Madame 
 de Lescure. " We shall be safer in prison with you than 
 alone at Clisson. People might come to rob us ; and 
 you know," she added, with tears in her eyes, "that I 
 have not in the world a roof that I can call my own." 
 
 " M. Desessait remains here," said Madame de Lescure, 
 very low; "he has disguised himself. I saw him just 
 now in the kitchen, in a cotton cap and white dress." 
 
 Madame Boguet repressed a smile. 
 
 " I had rather be under the protection of M. de Lescure 
 than under that of a cook," she said. 
 
 Her daughters had come near.
 
 42 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " Yes, let us go to prison," said Celeste to her sisters ; 
 "it is the beginning of our adventures. M. Henri will 
 deliver us : he promised it ! " 
 
 " Poor children ! " said their mother, softly. 
 
 " And I will protect Mdlle. Marie," announced M. de 
 Marigny. 
 
 "Get into your carriage, ladies," said M. de Lescure. 
 " Is Madame Boguet coming with us ? " And he looked 
 at her with surprise. 
 
 "Who would protect my children?" she said. Her 
 eyes filled with tears. 
 
 He bowed without answering her. 
 
 "A prisoner's protection," he murmured to himself. 
 
 All entered the carriage, and the heavy vehicle, shaking 
 slowly from side to side, surrounded by twenty gen- 
 darmes, took the road to Bressuire. The serjeant had 
 drawn out his sabre and spoke to his troop. 
 
 "Citizens," he said, " I hope that you will make a point 
 of bearing witness to the submission with which they 
 have obeyed, and to the good reception which they have 
 given us ! " 
 
 All the gendarmes applauded, for the passions of civil 
 war were not yet let loose.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE GROCER'S LODGINGS. 
 
 patriots in Bressuire were not reassured: 
 there were rumours of risings in all the 
 parishes. The echoes of Chollet, of St. 
 Florent, and of Chenille had reached their ears. Every 
 one was at the gates. The women had hidden their 
 money, their linen, and their best clothes. 
 
 " They say that they did not pillage at Chdllet," said 
 the boldest. 
 
 " Yes ; but at St. Florent they burnt everything," said 
 the timid ones. 
 
 "The papers of the district! That didn't do much 
 harm ! " 
 
 And every one laughed, except the municipal officers, 
 who had to keep up their dignity. 
 
 The rulers were assembled in the Town Hall, the 
 " District," as it was then called, a little excited, for they 
 were expecting the return of the gendarmes who had 
 been sent to Clisson, and they did not come.
 
 44 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 "If the rebels should have been about there," they 
 said, "there was not a sufficient number of patriots to 
 offer any resistance. They say that M. Henri has put 
 himself at the head of the peasants." 
 
 " Nonsense ! Such a child ! " said disdainfully a shoe- 
 maker, who had never had the honour of selling boots 
 to M. de la Rochejacquelein. 
 
 " Since M. le Marquis has emigrated, it must certainly 
 be his son," said the rival shoemaker, who had the custom 
 of the Castle of Durbelliere ; but at the words " M. le 
 Marquis" all the magistrates drew themselves up in 
 indignation, and the unhappy shoemaker, confused and 
 alarmed, left the council in great haste, pleading indis- 
 position. 
 
 " He is an aristocrat ; we must mark him down," said 
 his enemy solemnly ; and all the others applauded him. 
 
 Still the gendarmes did not arrive. However, they 
 were on the road ; but the good reception at the Castle 
 of Clisson had included dinner, and the patriots had not 
 hurried their meal. They were getting near Bressuire, 
 and the inhabitants, hearing the heavy steps of the oxen 
 and the lumbering wheels of the carriage, went out 
 of the town to see the arrival of the party. A certain 
 number of ill-looking men, almost all strangers to the 
 country, cried with hoarse voices, 
 
 " Down with the aristocrats ! " 
 
 The volunteers, led on by their example, repeated the 

 
 THE CONVOY. 45 
 
 same cry. The sergeant of the gendarmes advanced 
 towards them with his sword drawn : 
 
 " Will you hold your tongues, you fools ! " he cried. 
 "If all citizens were worth as much as these are, the 
 Republic would be in no danger." 
 
 "Take us to the Town Hall," said M. de Lescure, 
 putting his head out of the window. He was so much 
 respected in the neighbourhood, that the crowd drew 
 back without insulting him. 
 
 The carriage stopped at the door of the Town Hall, 
 and the sergeant went in to make his report. 
 
 " Where are we to take the prisoners ? " he asked. 
 
 The magistrates hesitated. 
 
 " To Foret-on-Sevre," said the shoemaker. 
 
 Many persons had already been taken to this little 
 castle, which had formerly belonged to Duplessis-Mornay, 
 and where he had died. The guards there were renowned 
 for their patriotism. They had talked of a massacre, and 
 the good sergeant trembled for the prisoners, who had 
 touched his heart. 
 
 " Let the citizens return to Ciisson, and let a guard be 
 given them," he said. " I offer myself as their com- 
 mander." 
 
 "The wine appears to be good at Clisson," said the 
 shoemaker, ironically. 
 
 The gendarme stared at him: he did not belong to the 
 country, and did not know the magistrate's antecedents.
 
 46 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " Dv you happen to know what a respectable man in 
 like ? " he asked him, contemptuously. 
 
 The shoemaker was purple with anger, but no one 
 attended to him. 
 
 " Clisson is isolated : it would be easy to take it by 
 surprise ; and Boisine is not over safe already," said the 
 chief magistrate. " It will be better to keep them here." 
 "Let them at least have the town for their prison," 
 said the sergeant. " There are six women to three men, 
 without reckoning a fine handsome girl on the box, whom 
 no one ordered me to arrest, but she came over and above 
 the bargain." 
 
 The magistrates began to laugh, and the sergeant went 
 out to dispose of the prisoners. 
 
 During his absence the carriage, carefully guarded by 
 the escort, had been surrounded by the crowd. A muni- 
 cipal officer, dressed in a handsome uniform, still quite 
 new, divided the throng of people and advanced to the 
 carriage. 
 
 " If the magistrates give their consent, I offer to guard 
 these prisoners at my own house," he said, in a loud voice. 
 Madame de Lescure looked at him with astonishment, 
 and not without uneasiness. Was it a friend or an 
 enemy ? She turned to her maid Agathe, foster-sister to 
 M. de Lescure, who, not choosing to abandon them, 
 had squeezed herself with great difficulty on the box, 
 between the coachman and M. de Marigny.
 
 A FRIEND. 47 
 
 "It is M. Gady, your grocer, mada :ic," she said, in a 
 whisper. 
 
 " We cannot dispose of our own persons," said M. de 
 Lescure, " otherwise I would immediately accept M. 
 Gady's hospitality." 
 
 The municipal officer drew himself up proudly, de- 
 lighted to find that they knew his name. 
 
 " But I wish to speak myself in the Town Hall," con- 
 tinued M. de Lescure. " I do not know why I have been 
 arrested : I demand a trial." 
 
 " And I demand mine too," whispered Celeste, who was 
 still laughing. 
 
 Her sister touched her with her elbow to make her 
 hold her tongue. 
 
 The sergeant had re*appeared, 
 
 "I could not get leave to take you back to Clisson, 
 citizens," he said to Madame de Lescure, " but you may 
 lodge wherever you like in the town. You will not be 
 taken to prison." 
 
 " Then we will go to M. Gady's house," said Madame 
 de Lescure, joyously. " I remember him now quite well, 
 and we shall be quite close and handy for buying our 
 sugar." She laughed, and her husband looked at her 
 compassionately. 
 
 " Take care what you Say," he whispered, as he passed 
 her in order to get out of the carriage, and enter the 
 Town Hall.
 
 4 8 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 Madame de Lescure blushed : she looked for the cheerful 
 face of the good grocer ; but he had vanished, and a fine 
 young man, strong, with an open countenance and thick 
 curly hair, came forward in his stead. 
 
 " My father has gone home to prepare the lodgings," 
 he said, smiling : " I will show the coachman the way." 
 And the four oxen soon brought the carriage to the 
 municipal officer's door. 
 
 There was a great bustle in the little house. The 
 grocer had run in all out of breath. 
 
 " M. le Marquis and some ladies are coming to lodge 
 here ! " he cried, as he entered the little shop, where his 
 wife and daughters were alone, for all their customers 
 were in the market-place, round the carriage : " we must 
 get the upstairs rooms ready directly." 
 
 His wife had risen from her seat her arms hanging 
 down, her mouth open. 
 
 " M. le Marquis ! " she repeated slowly. 
 
 " Yes, M. le Marquis de Lescure, and all his people. 
 There are six ladies : I do not know who any of them 
 are, except Madame la Marquise. I saw them one day 
 when I vent to Mass at Boisine in the old days," he 
 adde^, recollecting himself. " Come, Catherine, Marie, 
 we must make haste ! " 
 
 Catherine had smiled, bending towards her sister. 
 
 " It must certainly have been Jean who gave this advice 
 to my father. He thinks of nothing but pleasing nobles
 
 THE RECEPTION. 49 
 
 and priests because of Marthe. However, I shall be very 
 glad to see a marquis before they are all quite extinct." 
 And she ran to open the windows of the two little best 
 bed-rooms, which were carefully kept in order for rela- 
 tions who came from a distance, or for merchants who 
 had dealings with Gady, and who sometimes came to 
 Bressuire on business. 
 
 She had hardly time to shake out the curtains of violet 
 chintz with a flowery pattern, and to throw over the bed 
 a coverlet of yellow satin, which belonged to "your late 
 grandmother," as Madame Gady said to her daughters, 
 when the carriage drew up at the door. 
 
 M. de Donissan alighted first to hand out the ladies. 
 Gady hurried them in, and almost pushed them into the 
 back shop. The idle fellows of the place who had followed 
 the procession began to pour into the little shop. The 
 grocer came forward to them after he had shut the door 
 at the back. 
 
 " Do you want anything, citizens ? " he asked. 
 
 " A penn'orth of tobacco," said one patriot, gravely. 
 
 " And the pleasure of seeing your aristocrats," said a 
 second, impudently. 
 
 " I have no aristocrats here," ha said, boldly ; " I have 
 only some prisoners of the Republic, for whom I am 
 responsible." 
 
 The resolute tone in which the grocer spoke, the broad 
 shoulders of his son, who stood upright before the door
 
 50 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 at the back, and an involuntary feeling of respect for the 
 nobles, which there had not yet been time enough to 
 efface completely, made the crowd fall back; the shop 
 was soon empty, and there only remained two or three 
 customers. 
 
 A young girl, with downcast eyes, was asking for a 
 piece of soap. At the sound of her voice, Jean Gady 
 advanced quickly towards her ; and Marthe for it was 
 she gave him a supplicating but firm look. 
 
 " I wanted to see you once more, because it is the last 
 time," she murmured ; and paying for her purchase, she 
 went hurriedly out of the shop, and in an instant had 
 disappeared in the narrow streets of the town. But 
 Jean followed her at a little distance : it was in the open 
 country that he wished to speak to her. 
 
 Celeste Boguet had drawn aside a corner of the cur- 
 tain which hung over the glass door. 
 
 " There is our dragoon going out," she whispered to 
 her sisters. "There was there, just now, a little peasant 
 girl, as lovely as a Madonna. I am very glad that he is 
 gone, his shoulders were so broad that they prevented 
 me from seeing anything. Perhaps he knows that young 
 girl." 
 
 " Do hold your tongue, Celeste," said Mdlle. Boguet ; 
 " you don't know what you are saying." 
 
 " I know perfectly well what I am saying," persisted 
 the thoughtless girl ; " but now that there is no one in
 
 CLOSE PACKING. 51 
 
 the shop, I hope that they will not keep us here for ever, 
 packed eight in a box, and nine when M. le Marquis 
 comes back." 
 
 "We are very fortunate in being here, instead of being 
 taken to Foret-on-Sevre," said Madame de Donissan, 
 who had overheard Celeste. 
 
 The girl coloured. As the daughter of a petty country 
 gentleman, she had a profound respect for the great lady, 
 who had been brought up at Court, in the household of 
 Madame Victoire, Louis XV.'s daughter, and whose 
 grave kindness, mingled with much dignity, imposed 
 silence on her gay chatter. 
 
 " I can't forgive myself for having let you come here, 
 mother," said Madame de Lescure earnestly : " you and 
 my father are too old to risk the chances of a time like 
 ours ; you ought not to brave them." 
 
 " Do you think that death would be less bitter to me 
 if I spent my life away from you ? " said Madame de 
 Donissan, placing her hand on her daughter's shoulder. 
 
 She kissed it respectfully and made no more protests. 
 
 Catherine and Marie had come back into the shop, 
 red, out of breath, and triumphant. 
 
 " Everything is ready upstairs," they said to their 
 father, who immediately went to the door of the back 
 shop ; but the honest girls drew back in dismay when 
 they saw six ladies come out one after the other from 
 the little roGirh where they had been 1 shut Up. "There
 
 52 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 are only two beds ! " said Marie to Catherine with con- 
 sternation. 
 
 "They will manage for themselves," said Catherine, 
 shrugging her shoulders. " They are very lucky to have 
 any beds at all, when there are so many patriots sleeping 
 on straw." 
 
 Catherine's lover was in the Army of the Rhine, and 
 her patriotism was more decided than that of the rest of 
 the family. 
 
 The prisoners had just gone upstairs, with Gady lead- 
 ing the way. One of the rooms, which was furnished with 
 two beds and was larger than the other, was intended 
 for the ladies ; the three gentlemen were to inhabit the 
 other one. As he showed them into these close quarters, 
 the good grocer himself was struck by the incongruity. 
 
 "This is not like Clisson," he said, in an apologetic 
 voice. 
 
 " Clisson is no longer a place of refuge for us," said 
 Madame de Lescure, quickly, "and we have found one 
 here." 
 
 Gady bowed to the ground : if he had to die for it, he 
 would not have given up the Marquise after that speech. 
 
 Celeste had gone to the window. The grocer went up 
 to her quickly : 
 
 "Just one word more, ladies," he said, "before I leave 
 you : do not let yourselves be seen, do not let yourselves 
 be heard ; let people forget you, if possible, it will be
 
 A NEW CHAMBERMAID. 53 
 
 the surest way of safety. We will do what we can on 
 our part." And he went away. 
 
 Madame Boguet had sat down on a chair with a look 
 of despair, but Madame de Lescure, on the other hand, 
 had put down her gloves, her handkerchief, and her 
 fan. 
 
 "I am going to arrange the room after my own 
 fashion," she said, in a gay tone ; " since this will perhaps 
 be our lodging for several days, we must settle ourselves 
 into it. Father, if you will take away M. de Marigny 
 with you, we women shall be more at our ease." 
 
 "That is to say that you turn us out," said M. de 
 Donissan, gaily. 
 
 " Not altogether ; but I must have room to make our 
 arrangements." And she began to shake out the beds. 
 
 The two gentlemen departed. 
 
 "We want a third bed," said Madame de Lescure, 
 who had taken all the management on herself; "one for 
 Madame Boguet and Marie, one for Celeste and Louise, 
 one for my mother and me, and a mattress in the corner 
 for Agathe." 
 
 "Do not trouble yourself about me, madame," said 
 the good girl, laughing. "I am to sleep in the back 
 shop, with M. Gady's daughters." 
 
 " Very good ! Now, nobody is to help me. I am 
 going to begin my morning as a prisoner, by making the 
 beds myself. Only, Agathe, I cannot lift these mat-
 
 54 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 tresses all alone. No, no, do not take them all : only 
 one corner." 
 
 Half laughing, half crying, Agathe carried off the 
 mattresses stolen from each bed, to make a third. She 
 could easily have lifted, at the same time, Madame de 
 Lescure, who was gravely unfolding the counterpanes. 
 
 "You do not know how to make a bed," said her 
 mother. 
 
 "You shall see. No one is to give me any advice." 
 
 And she carefully spread out the first sheet, without 
 a single crease ; the blankets, the counterpane, nothing 
 was wanting, but still the bed had a strange appearance. 
 The lady looked at it anxiously, and spread out the bed- 
 clothes with still greater care. 
 
 " What is the matter with it ? " she said j " I thought it 
 was very well made." 
 
 Madame de Donissan laughed; the three sisters knew 
 no more about it than Madame de Lescure. Agathe 
 came forward and lifted up the coverings. 
 
 " You have forgotten the second sheet, madame," she 
 said, gravely. 
 
 " Have I really ? " she said, letting herself fall into a 
 chair with a disappointed air. " Agathe, please make it 
 again, I can do no more ; I should never have thought 
 that it was so tiring to make a bed."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A MOURNFUL TRYST. 
 
 the prisoners were making themselves 
 at home in the place of shelter so generously 
 offered to them by the municipal officer, Jean 
 Gady had rejoined Marthe in a little valley not far from 
 the town. The young girl had walked fast; she felt 
 that she was followed, but she did not wish to avoid 
 Jean. She wanted to see him once again, in order to 
 tell him why she should not see him any more ; but she 
 had hastened to leave the town, to escape from the eyes 
 which seemed to her to be always curiously fixed on 
 her; and besides, in hurrying away, she was hastening 
 the moment of that interview which she both desired 
 and feared. She had stopped, out of breath, and had 
 just seated herself on a stone to rest, when Jean appeared 
 before her. 
 
 " Marthe ! " he said. 
 
 She rose. Just before, her legs had trembled beneath 
 her, now she felt herself strong ; the great hour of the
 
 50 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 struggle had come, and God had answered the prayer 
 which the poor child had never ceased to send up to 
 Him during the last fortnight. 
 
 " Marthe ! " repeated the young man ; " why did you 
 come to our house, and why did you run away without 
 saying anything to anybody, like a frightened lamb ? " 
 
 " I knew that you would follow me," said Marthe in a 
 low voice. " I came to see you once more as a friend." 
 
 Jean looked at her : his anger was already rising. 
 
 " For the last time ! " he cried. " You won't have any- 
 thing more to do with me ? you are thinking of some one 
 else. Let him take care of himself! If any one comes 
 within a hundred yards of you, only to speak one word 
 of love to you, and I find him there, he will not speak 
 twice to you ! " 
 
 "I think of no one but you," said Marthe, with the 
 
 ' unchangeable gentleness of the Vendean women ; " how 
 
 could I do otherwise, since I was betrothed to you? 
 
 But, Jean, all that is over ; the good God has separated 
 
 us, and we can never be married ! " 
 
 " Curses upon " began Jean, but he did not finish 
 
 his sentence ; Marthe had put her hand on his mouth. 
 
 " Be quiet ! " she said, sharply. " I want to be able to 
 pray for you." 
 
 "You come to tell me that your God, or rather your 
 priests, have separated us, and you will not let me curse 
 them ! " cried Jean, giving vent to his fury. " Such is
 
 RENUNCIATION. 57 
 
 the slavery from which the Republic has delivered us. 
 We need not now give account of our actions to any one, 
 and we can do whatever we wish." 
 
 " And who is it who helps you to do what you ought 
 to do and don't like ? " asked the young Vendean woman, 
 standing upright, her eyes excited by the strife, her 
 hands tightly clasped upon her breast, as though she 
 were guarding the last treasure left to her her hope and 
 her religious belief. 
 
 " Who has forbidden you to belong to me ? " continued 
 Jean, without answering Marthe's difficult question. 
 " Tell me directly, this moment, that I may go and look 
 for him, where he is hiding, that I may kill him ! " 
 
 "She who commanded me to bid you farewell has 
 been sleeping in the grave for eight days," said Marthe, 
 slowly, and as if she spoke with difficulty. " Two hours 
 before her death, my mother gave her malediction to 
 those who should go over to the side of those people 
 who have taken away our good priests, and have put us 
 in danger of dying without sacraments. She looked at 
 me : I knew well that it was to me that she was speaking, 
 and I promised to obey her, while her eyes were closing, 
 and while the priest was saying, 'Depart, Christian 
 soul ! ' " 
 
 Young Gady paused for a minute, astonished and 
 nearly conquered. Respect for the dead formed part of 
 the earliest education of all the inhabitants of Poitou,
 
 58 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 whether peasants or townsfolk. Marthe's promise seemed 
 to him almost as sacred as it did to her. But it was not 
 in vain that the philosophical doctrines, which had been 
 spread throughout France in books and newspapers, had 
 undermined all religious principles and ideas of morality. 
 In the general inundation of notions of liberty, those 
 souls which only possessed a traditional faith and un- 
 certain convictions had let themselves be carried away 
 by the current of popular passions and hopes towards a 
 practical unbelief. They did not go to the services held 
 by the fugitive priests, nor did they attend those of the 
 " Constitutional " clergy ; they were unconsciously ad- 
 vancing towards the worship of the Goddess of Reason. 
 
 But indignation had again seized Jean : he looked at 
 Marthe angrily. 
 
 " Since when have the living been sacrificed to the 
 dead ? " he asked, in a hollow voice. " Your priests 
 themselves have said that a man ought to leave all, 
 parents and friends, to cleave to his wife : ought the wife 
 to do nothing in her turn ? " 
 
 Marthe had sat down again ; the conflict exhausted 
 her. She had hoped that Jean would understand her 
 reasons immediately, and that he would submit, as she 
 did, to an inevitable misfortune. She looked up at him 
 with her large sad eyes. 
 
 " I am not your wife, Jean ; the priest has not yet 
 pronounced his benediction over us, and he never will
 
 REFUSAL. 59 
 
 pronounce it. My mother would curse me from her 
 grave." 
 
 "Your mother is dead," said Jean, in his anger lying 
 to his own conscience. 
 
 Marthe sprang up. 
 
 " She lives ! " she cried. " She hears us, she sees us ; I 
 am sure of it. She has appeared to me every night since 
 we buried her, while I have been alone in the house ; she 
 has come to take care of me as she used to do. If I 
 were to disobey her I should never see her again, or I 
 should see her angry with me, with her hand stretched 
 out, and her eyes flashing as they did when she pro- 
 nounced the curse. Now she sits by me ; she takes me 
 on her knees, as she used to do when I was little ; she 
 comforts me, and then I weep : in the daytime I cannot." 
 
 Jean looked at the young girl with uneasiness. 
 
 " You are ill ! " he said. 
 
 " I don't know. I am in a fever sometimes ; and then 
 I am all alone, now that Jacques and Pierre have gone 
 
 with M. Henri. The nights are long, and sometimes 
 
 I am frightened." 
 
 Jean made one step towards Marthe : he wanted to 
 take her in his arms, but she fell on her knees, stretching 
 out her hands to push him away. 
 
 " No, no ! " she said ; " you do not believe in God, you 
 do not go to Mass ! My mother was right ; I cannot be 
 your wife you would draw me down to hell ! "
 
 50 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 She was trembling in all her limbs. 
 
 "You would be free to believe whatever you liked," 
 said Jean, proudly : " the Republicans do not force any 
 one's conscience, and if you could not be always running 
 to Mass in the woods, there are two services every day 
 in the two churches in the town." 
 
 " Intruders," said Marthe, disdainfully, " who do not 
 believe in our holy father the Pope ! " 
 
 Jean laughed scornfully. 
 
 " We don't vrant a Pope any more than a King ! " he 
 said. 
 
 Marthe had risen, and she had drawn her shawl round 
 her shoulders. 
 
 ".And my brothers are righting for God and the King," 
 she said. " Good bye, Jean." 
 
 " I shall come one of these days to the Green Farm, 
 and I shall carry you away before you have time to 
 say a word ! " cried the young man, beside himself with 
 passion. " I do not know what is preventing me from 
 doing it to-day, at this moment" And he advanced 
 towards her threateningly. 
 
 " You are still too good a man for that," she said, 
 looking him full in the face. " In a year's time, perhaps, 
 when you have become altogether a Republican ; but 
 before that I shall be no longer on the earth," she added 
 in a lower voice. 
 
 She had again taken up her basket, which she had put
 
 FORLORN HOPE. 61 
 
 down on the stone ; and without turning round, without 
 looking back, she started again with a firm step on the 
 road to St. Aubin. Suddenly she heard a panting, broken 
 voice at her ear. 
 
 " Do you love me still ? " it said. 
 
 "Always!" said Marthe, turning, and looking at the 
 young man. 
 
 " Then I shall only have to wait : I shall find you 
 again." And jumping over a hedge which separated the 
 little hollow path from a field of maize, he disappeared 
 from Marthe's eyes. 
 
 She paused for a moment, looking at the spot where 
 she had seen him for the last time. 
 
 " Good bye ! " she said : " it is over ! " And she con- 
 tinued her path, telling her beads.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE AMBUSCADE. 
 
 ARTHE was approaching St. Aubin, absorbed 
 in her thoughts, still excited by the struggle, 
 and praying with all her heart for Jean, who 
 prayed no longer ; and she did not hear a distant sound, 
 which was becoming at every instant louder and more 
 distinct. She walked on without raising her eyes, without 
 stumbling over the stones in the road, the least turnings 
 in which she knew well ; and she shuddered with fright 
 when a hand was placed on her arm. Had Jean followed 
 so far ? Should she have to begin again to resist him ? 
 She looked : it was the idiot of the village, " Rougeau," 
 as they called him, from the name of a bull, which, while 
 ploughing one day in the fields, had stopped short, in 
 spite of his master's cries, to avoid stepping on a new- 
 born child which had been left on the ground. They had 
 taken the poor little creature and brought it up, and 
 Marthe's mother in particular had taken care of it ; but 
 as he grew up, they found out that he was an idiot. He
 
 ROUGE A V. 63 
 
 wandered from house to house, received by all with the 
 respect due to those "innocents" to whom God has 
 refused the burden and the honour of responsibility ; but 
 it was at the Green Farm that he spent the longest time, 
 it was at that hearth that he came most often to seat 
 himself. Marthe had not, however, seen him since her 
 mother's death. She looked at him with astonishment : 
 an unusual animation lighted up his face. 
 
 "They are down there, the enemies of the good Lord !" 
 he said, in an indistinct voice, which, however, Marthe 
 understood easily. " There are many, many of them ; 
 they were making a noise, but M. Henri was hidden 
 behind a hedge, and Jacques too, and they made their 
 guns go off; and on the other side they fell, plump, and 
 they did not get up any more." 
 
 Marthe shuddered. This first beginning of war seemed 
 horrible to her. Suppose Jean had been among "the 
 enemies of the good Lord " who had fallen before 
 M. Henri's gun ! She walked on rapidly. 
 
 " Can one pass so as to get back to the Green Farm ? " 
 she asked Rougeau, who was following her. 
 
 " Oh, there is not any danger this way," said the idiot, 
 grinning, and showing his white teeth. "M. Henri is 
 lying in ambush behind the hedge of the little field, and 
 nobody comes near him from behind. I am keeping 
 guard." 
 
 " By walking as far as this ? " And Marthe quickened 
 .her steps,
 
 64 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 The idea of the danger which her brothers and M. Henri 
 might be in, if the enemy should discover the path which 
 led round the little field, had suddenly presented itself 
 to her mind. She longed to reach the place, to be near 
 them, to know what was going on. She reached the farm 
 without any difficulty. The regular report of single shots 
 could be heard ; almost always two reports followed each 
 other, but there was no answer from the little field. 
 
 " M. Henri and Jacques are firing all alone ! " said 
 Marthe, surprised. " Cannot the Blues even do as much 
 as that ? " 
 
 " M. Henri is behind the hedge, hidden under the great 
 holly bushes," cried the idiot, laughing ; " he has already 
 brought down two hundred Blues." 
 
 A great noise was heard in the meadow. The firing 
 ceased suddenly. The Republicans, tired of losing the ; r 
 men without seeing the enemy, had made a movement 
 to put themselves in order of battle on the hill. 
 
 " They are flying, my friends ! " cried Henri de la 
 Rochejacquelein. " Now is our time ! " 
 
 " Long live the King ! " cried the peasants, leaping 
 over the hedges. 
 
 The trunk of each tree seemed to turn into a man. The 
 Blues found themselves surrounded. They had thought 
 that they had to do with a few practised marksmen : 
 they now found themselves opposed to an army. The 
 small detachment took fright and fled. Henri, the fore-

 
 JACQUES TURNED ROUND, AND LOOKED FIXEDLY AT HIS SISTER. p. 65
 
 FIKST SUCCESS. 65 
 
 most at the head of the peasants, pursued them for more 
 than an hour. He did not fire any more, but the wounded 
 whom he had shot, and who had wished to follow their 
 comrades, fell on the road, and died unsuccoured. The 
 peasants picked up the guns that the flying enemy had 
 dropped, and Henri returned in the evening in triumph 
 to Durbelliere, preceded by two small pieces of cannon 
 which the enemy had left on the field. 
 
 Pierre and Jacques, wild with joy, had gone back to 
 the Green Farm. 
 
 " When M. Henri arrived yesterday, very unhappy 
 because they had been beaten and driven back as far as 
 Tiffanges, he did not think that we should do so well 
 to-day," said Pierre. "We told him so all the same, 
 and to-morrow he will have from all the parishes at least 
 ten thousand men. The lads have all promised to meet 
 at the opening in the woods, and then we will go to 
 Bressuire to look for M. le Marquis, before they have cut 
 off his head ; and the Blues shall see if we know how to 
 shoot." 
 
 Marthe shuddered. 
 
 " M. and Madame de Lescure are quite we-11," she said, 
 in a voice which she tried to steady ; " and the people 
 are very kind to them." 
 
 Jacques turned round, and looked fixedly at his sister. 
 
 " How do you know that ? " he said, in a threatening 
 
 tone. 
 
 8
 
 66 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 ' I have been to the town to buy some soap," she said, 
 without looking down. 
 
 "And to see Jean, I '11 lay a wager !" burst out Jacques, 
 rising and doubling his fists. "After our mother's dying 
 words ! ' 
 
 Marthe did not flinch. 
 
 " I went to tell Jean that I shall never see him again," 
 she said simply, 
 
 Jacques paused, ashamed of his anger. 
 
 " Very well," he murmured. 
 
 "It is at his father's house that M. the Marquis is living," 
 continued Marthe. 
 
 " The house shall be protected for the sake of M. the 
 Marquis," said Pierre, laughing. 
 
 Marthe smiled : she had got what she wanted.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AT BRESSUIRE. 
 
 JJFTER Henri de la Rochejacquelein had tri- 
 umphed unexpectedly over the Republicans, 
 he hastened to rejoin the army of Anjou, 
 which he had left beaten and disorganized, under the 
 command of M. de Bonchamps and Cathelineau. The 
 people were much excited at Bressuire at the rumour of 
 the skirmish at Aubin. M. de Lescure had hoped that 
 his cousin would immediately march on the town, and 
 each day passed in inaction while his friends were fighting 
 seemed a century to him. He sat in a corner of the little 
 room which gave him shelter, his head on his hands, " in 
 patience possessing his soul," but obliged to have recourse 
 to all his religious strength in order to bear imprisonment 
 and idleness. 
 
 M. de Donissan, calmer and older, and less deeply 
 interested in those who were carrying on the struggle, 
 was yet preparing himself to take part in it, by studying 
 a bad map of the country, which he had with great diffi- 
 
 n 2
 
 68 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 culty procured, and on which he traced, according to the 
 descriptions of M. de Lescure and Agathe, the little paths 
 which he did not know, but which his companions had 
 used from infancy. 
 
 M. de Marigny was continually coming and going from 
 one room to the other, often disturbing the ladies in their 
 retreat, where Madame de Donissan peacefully knitted 
 and read her book of devotions, and comforted the weep- 
 ing Madame Boguet, while Madame de Lescure and the 
 three young girls gave vent to their impatience at their 
 friends' tardiness. 
 
 " I cannot understand what Henri is about," Madame 
 de Lescure would often say; "he will wait so long that 
 we shall all be massacred before he comes. The Mar- 
 seillais are said to be coming this evening, Madame Gady 
 told me, and they frighten me very much." 
 
 The Marseillais did in fact arrive. These bodies of 
 volunteers had already fought in several places. They 
 were much feared ; and their martial appearance, when 
 they entered the town in the evening by torchlight, made 
 the prisoners tremble. They passed under the grocer 
 Gady's windows singing the " Marseillaise ; " their dusty 
 garments, tired aspect, and sparkling eyes gave them the 
 appearance of troops hardened by a long war. 
 
 " The soldiers rise from the earth in our country," said 
 M. de Donissan, watching them defile. " All those men 
 were at the plough or behind the counter six months ago.
 
 THE MARSEILLAIS. 69 
 
 Luckily, generals are not to be made so easily ; those 
 whom the Republic has about here seem to beat about 
 the bush." 
 
 " Don't say that, father," cried Madame de Lescure, 
 eagerly, and laughing ; " you will take away all the glory 
 of conquering them. Besides, we are obliged to impro- 
 vise generals, as we could not find any ready-made." 
 
 "Perhaps we beat about the bush, too, sometimes," and 
 M. de Lescure smiled : " but if it is to find the Blues " 
 
 An alarming tumult interrupted his words. The Mar- 
 seillais had put down their arms, and were shouting that 
 the prisoners must be got rid of. 
 
 Madame de Donissan rose, and taking up her book of 
 devotions, " We must now die, my children," she said. 
 " Let us pray to God." 
 
 " No," said Madame de Lescure, " God does not will 
 that we should die without having declared ourselves for 
 Him." 
 
 " The Marseillais do no,t know where we are," said 
 Celeste, bravely, coming forwards to the group of "grown 
 people," as she always said ; " and I am sure that M. and 
 Madame Gady will nofc betray us." 
 
 "All the town knows that we are here," sobbed her 
 mother. 
 
 M. de Marigny was still looking through the window, 
 the curtain of which he had gently raised. 
 
 "There they are I" he said in a smothered voice; " there
 
 ;o THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 are eleven prisoners, no more. We have as many as that 
 here. I have a great mind to go and join them . . . 
 they are peasants. The Mayor is there ; he has his scarf 
 on he is struggling he is resisting the Marseillais. 
 There is General Quetineau, a fine general, who cannot 
 make his soldiers obey him ! The whole army is begin- 
 ning to fight : the Mayor is quite angry. Ah ! they have 
 carried him off ! The Marseillais are laughing at the 
 magistrates. Poor creatures ! they are on their knees ! 
 Ah ! how horrible ! " And he let the curtain fall. 
 
 A weak shout had risen in the market-place. " Long 
 live the King ! " said the prisoners. They were answered 
 by sabre-blows. M. de Marigny was furious : he had 
 seized his arms, and wished to go down and blow out 
 the brains of the commander of the Marseillais. 
 
 " If I should be massacred afterwards, what would it 
 matter ? " said he ; " to-day or to-morrow ! " 
 
 In vain M. de Donissan and M. de Lescure represented 
 to him the danger of his project, the attention which he 
 would draw upon them, the death which would await 
 them all. He would not listen to them; the fits of 
 violence to which he was subject had completely blinded 
 him, and he was just going out, when his eye fell upon 
 the little group formed by the Boguet sisters. Celeste, 
 almost as angry as M. de Marigny, was saying in a loud 
 voice, 
 
 " Let him go I He is a selfish man ; he does not care
 
 ALARMS. ;t 
 
 for our all being killed with him. Very well : we shall 
 all die together ! " 
 
 Louise had fainted with terror ; and Marie, standing 
 as pale as death, was supporting her fainting sister with 
 one hand, while she was holding back the passionate 
 girl, who was ready to throw herself on M. de Marigny. 
 He shuddered and stopped, his anger beginning to calm 
 itself. 
 
 The corpses of the unfortunate peasants had been 
 taken away : the traces of their blood had disappeared. 
 The inhabitants of Bressuire, ashamed and alarmed, had 
 made haste to clear away everything that could recall 
 the massacre to mind. They were trembling already, for 
 there was a report that the Royalist army was advancing 
 into Poitou ; and for the second time, as in the insur- 
 rection of 1792, the prisoners had been murdered in the 
 towns where there was most reason to fear reprisals. 
 The Marseillais reigned as masters over a terrified popu- 
 lation. New arrests every night had filled the prisons ; 
 townspeople suspected of aristocratic sympathies, and 
 doubtful patriots, were taken into custody, The Mayor, 
 who had opposed the murder of the prisoners, was carried 
 off amongst the first ; but the little house in the Place 
 St. Sauveur was still protected by the municipal uniform 
 of M. Gady, and the patriotic zeal of his son, who, since 
 Marthe's rejection of him, had thrown himself heart and 
 soul into the revolutionary movement.
 
 72 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " If M. Henri does not make haste, he will find no one 
 here ! " Celeste said repeatedly, and those who did not 
 say as much thought it. 
 
 It was the first month of spring ; the bushes in the little 
 gardens of the town were covered with young leaves, and 
 the grass which forced its way up between the paving- 
 stones of the little Place was young and fresh. 
 
 " How beautiful the woods at Clisson must be ! " said 
 Madame de Lescure, with a sigh. "And what a pretty 
 walk it would be to Boisine" to see my poor daughter ! " 
 
 Celeste was looking out of window. 
 
 " They are very much excited in the town/' she said, 
 suddenly. " Who knows but that M. Henri may be 
 coming ? Here is the General passing on horseback ; he 
 has a detachment with him, and they are galloping out 
 of the town. What are they going to see ? " 
 
 She had half opened the window in her curiosity, and, 
 in spite of her companions' anxiety, no one had ordered 
 her to shut it. The child was on her knees, and her 
 pretty light head was just at the height of the window- 
 frame. She listened to the conversations going on in 
 the Place. 
 
 " They say that there is a column of the enemy to the 
 west." 
 
 " The General is gone to reconnoitre." 
 
 " The brigands have marched upon Aigeuton ; if they 
 take it, we are lost."
 
 DOUBTS. n 
 
 The General came galloping back with a clouded brow 
 
 and twirling his moustache. His soldiers were laughing. 
 
 " Only a peasant, working with eight oxen ! " one of 
 
 them exclaimed, as they passed back to their quarters, 
 
 for the benefit of whoever might be curious. 
 
 " It was not worth running so fast about ! " answered 
 the idlers, laughing in their turn. 
 
 Nevertheless, the uneasiness increased. The soldiers 
 were grumbling. 
 
 " We shall be caught in a mousetrap here," they said ; 
 "and they will make us pay for the cruelties of the 
 Marseillais." 
 
 There was a sullen hum in all the streets, and move- 
 ments were heard in the neighbourhood of the canton- 
 ments. The prisoners had not gone to bed. 
 
 Celeste had thrown herself upon the bed, not liking to 
 undress, and had fallen asleep with her head resting on 
 the shoulder of her sister Louise, who was slumbering on 
 her knees by her side. 
 
 Marie was supporting in her arms her mother, who 
 had almost fainted with fright. Madame de Donissan 
 had drawn her daughter close to her. 
 
 " Let us pray to God, my child," she had said, " and 
 then we shall be ready, whatever comes." 
 
 " If only we had a priest, mamma ! " said Madame de 
 Lescure, with her eyes full of tears. 
 
 " God will remember our desires, my child," said the
 
 74 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 courageous mother. And she repeated the prayers for 
 the dying without faltering. 
 
 The day was breaking. The three gentlemen, standing 
 at a window, of which Madame de Donissan had opened 
 the shutters, watched from a height the motions of the 
 troops, who began to assemble in the Place. 
 
 All three had been struck at once by the same idea. 
 They looked at one another. 
 
 " It is a retreat," said M. de Donissan ; " the soldiers 
 are carrying off their plunder. There are some trying 
 to load themselves with the bullets which are heaped up 
 in the Place. What folly ! It is impossible ! " 
 
 "Before retiring they will shoot the prisoners/' said 
 M. de Marigny, looking gloomy. 
 
 " Perhaps they may not recollect us ! " The eyes of 
 M. de Lescure were beginning once more to sparkle with 
 joy. 
 
 "There must be news of the army Henri has not 
 forgotten us." 
 
 "Shut the shutters more closely, gentlemen," said 
 Madame de Donissan. " We shall attract attention." 
 
 The young girls had woke up : they came to kneel by 
 Madame de Lescure, arsd they all repeated the morning 
 prayers together. Meantime the troops defiled slowly. 
 A crowd of inhabitants, loaded with bundles of clothes 
 and dragging their children by the hands, followed the 
 army. The General marched at their head.
 
 THE RELEASE. 75 
 
 Each time that a company halted before the door, 
 the women's prayers were interrupted. " Here they are !" 
 they said ; but the soldiers marched on again, and they 
 returned to their beads. 
 
 Steps were heard on the staircase. There was a gentle 
 knock at the door, and Gady entered. 
 
 ' ' The town is evacuated, and you are free, ladies," he 
 said. " I intreat of you a refuge at Clisson. The Royal- 
 ists will wish to revenge the wrongs done to the prisoners 
 here, and we shall be given up to fire and sword." 
 
 " They will do no harm to]any one," said M. de Lescure, 
 stepping in front of his father-in-law and M. de Marigny, 
 and at once assuming a tone of command. " The Chris- 
 tian Army is Christian." 
 
 Gady scratched his ear. 
 
 " I have heard that M. de Bonchamp had great diffi- 
 culty in preventing pillage at Chollet ; and the brigands 
 begging your pardon, ladies, that is what they are 
 called love the nobles dearly, and respect the castles." 
 
 " I shall be most willing to see you at Clisson. I do, 
 indeed, owe you hospitality," replied M. de Lescure ; 
 "although I do not understand what good it can do 
 you." 
 
 The inhabitants of Bressuire were not of M. de Les- 
 cure's opinion. Gady's shop could not hold all the sup- 
 pliants who came to beg for a refuge at Clisson. Agathe 
 had already set out to order carts. M. and Madame de
 
 76 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 Lescure escaped by a back door. M. de Donissan, giving 
 his arm to Madame Boguet, and his wife leaning upon 
 M. de Marigny, started for Clisson in a more leisurely 
 manner. 
 
 Celeste had been anxious to run after Madame de 
 Lescure. 
 
 "Leave them," said Marie, holding her back; "they 
 want to return alone to the home they never thought to 
 see again." And the giddy little thing, laughing and 
 colouring, was fain to hide herself behind her mother, 
 who was no longer weeping.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE RETURN TO CLISSON. 
 
 HE castle was full of patriot refugees ; the 
 courtyard was blocked up with carts, furniture, 
 and baggage belonging to the inhabitants of 
 Bressuire ; but the Royalists had changed their course, 
 and did not march upon the town, which they would have 
 found deserted. 
 
 " So, I shall be the first to take it," M. de Lescure said 
 to his wife, " before the Blues return to it. I am going 
 to send out orders to my peasants. Why should they be 
 the only ones who are idle and without a leader ? " 
 
 " That is right ! " she cried, " and I am going to make 
 you some cockades ; " and she ran off to her room, laugh- 
 ing like a child. 
 
 She took with her M. de Marigny and the Chevalier 
 Desessait : the gentlemen prepared their arms, whilst the 
 young wife cut up a white silk dress which she had worn 
 at Court, and kept a heap of cockades in her work-basket. 
 They had shut themselves up, for they dreaded the re*
 
 7 8 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 monstrances and objections of Madame de Donissan, 
 and, meantime the cockades were ready. 
 
 The time of the rendezvous given to the peasants was 
 drawing near they must start and M. de Lescure came 
 into his mother-in-law's room. 
 
 " All arrangements are made," he said. " You can 
 leave this, taking all the ladies with you, and go under a 
 good escort to take refuge at Chatillon." 
 
 " But what will become of us if the patriots return to 
 Bressuire ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " To-morrow at daybreak I shall be master of Bres- 
 suire," said M. de Lescure, with the joy of triumph already 
 sparkling in his eyes. " This night forty parishes will rise 
 under my orders." 
 
 Madame de Donissan sank back almost fainting into 
 an arm-chair. 
 
 " We are lost," she murmured. " You are acting in- 
 considerately. You do not know where either the Re- 
 publicans or the Royalists are. You will be surprised 
 alone with your small force, and cut to pieces before 
 your friends can come to your assistance." 
 
 M. de Lescure heard her calmly. 
 
 " If every one had said as much, there would have 
 been no Royalist army yet," he replied. " I cannot stay 
 between four walls whilst my friends are fighting." And 
 he went out. 
 
 Madame de Lescure was standing at the window of
 
 BRESSUIRE TAKEN. 79 
 
 her room, watching the cloud of dust which still rose in 
 the direction in which her husband and M. de Marigny 
 had gone, when she heard a smothered murmur, which 
 soon became more distinct, rising from the court where 
 the patriots of Bressuire were gathered round their goods. 
 
 She felt herself charged with the defence of Clisson, 
 and went down to learn the cause of the noise. 
 
 A townsman pale, troubled, and covered with dust 
 formed the centre of a terrified group. 
 
 " They are there ! " he said. "They arrived as I was 
 leaving the town." 
 
 Madame de Lescure came forward. 
 
 " Who ? " she said. 
 
 " The brigands ! They are masters of Bressuire : per- 
 haps by this time everything is in flames ! " 
 
 A farmer entered the court whilst the townsman was 
 speaking. He walked straight up to Madame de Lescure, 
 who could hardly control her delight. 
 
 " Madame," he said, " as I was going with my oxen and 
 
 art to fetch the goods of these gentlemen, the brigands 
 
 passed by and took everything. I told them the oxen 
 
 belonged to M. le Marquis, and they promised to restore 
 
 them upon an order from his hand." 
 
 M. de Lescure came galloping back, his wife having 
 recalled him. 
 
 " You were right," he said to the people of Bressuire, 
 " The brigands do seem to love the nobles. I am going
 
 8o THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 to get my oxen and to save your goods. Fear nothing : 
 stay here without uneasiness." 
 
 He was gone once more, and his wife was again alone 
 in the midst of the terrified patriots. 
 
 " If the insurgents should arrive without Henri," she 
 said to herself, " they may not perhaps be pleased to find 
 all these refugees here ; besides, there are a formidable 
 number of them. It is a good thing my mother is so 
 much engrossed by nursing my aunt. 
 
 " Gentlemen," she said aloud, " I am afraid something 
 might happen if a band of brigands, without a leader, 
 should arrive here. Take off your cockades, and follow 
 me into the interior of the castle without letting any one 
 see you. I am going to place you in safety." 
 
 The townsfolk were too much frightened to resist : their 
 patriotic pride had disappeared ; and with Gady at their 
 head, they were all following Madame de Lescure, when 
 she heard a sound of horses galloping in the distance. 
 
 She hastily closed the door of the /oom into which she 
 had led her refugees, and ran do'wn into the court. She 
 was alone, for she had forbidden her people to come out, 
 lest they should do something imprudent. This timid 
 woman never thought of danger at the moment : it was 
 only beforehand or when looking back to it that she 
 trembled. 
 
 The horses came near : they were not very numerous ; 
 but there were shouts of " Long live the King ! " and the
 
 CLISSON DELIGHTED. 81 
 
 young woman came forward eagerly to meet the horse- 
 man. " Henri ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 He sprang to the ground. M. de Lescure and M. de 
 Marigny were with him, besides a few other gentlemen. 
 All the inhabitants of the castle rushed into the court- 
 yard, servants and all, shouting, " Long live the King ! " 
 
 " So I have delivered you ! " exclaimed M. de la Roche- 
 jacquelein in delight. 
 
 The patriots of Bressuire had heard the tumult. They 
 thought people had come to murder them. One of them 
 timidly opened the door. 
 
 " It is madame," he said. " She is there in the midst 
 with all her company. There don't seem to be many 
 brigands." 
 
 The boldest ventured to come out, and then they came 
 forward, and threw themselves at the feet of M. de 
 Lescure. 
 
 " They did you no harm at Bressuire," they repeated. 
 
 "They did me good," said M. de Lescure, raising 
 Gady, who was emboldened by the remembrance of his 
 self-devotion. " Here is the gentleman to whom I owe 
 my life," he added, presenting him to his cousin. 
 
 Henri de la Rochejacquelein embraced the brave grocer 
 both elated and grateful. 
 
 " These gentlemen have done well to take refuge from 
 the brigands in the castle of the brigand chief," he said, 
 laughing.
 
 82 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " Not at all it is you who are the chief," said M. de 
 Lescure. 
 
 " You will be the chief to-morrow," Henri insisted. " I 
 am only a hussar, ready to fight that is all." 
 
 They had entered the castle, and M. de Lescure leant 
 his hand with a caressing authority on the shoulder of his 
 young cousin. 
 
 " I should like very much to know what you said to 
 your peasants when they came to you from all the 
 parishes. They say there were ten thousand the day 
 after the affair at the Aubiers. Is that true ? " 
 
 " Ten thousand is perhaps putting it high, but there 
 were a great many. We had four small cannon, but only 
 three charges of powder for each. We found a little of it 
 at Bressuire, so that now we have at least twelve cart- 
 ridges to each piece, and here we are back again ! I said 
 to them, ' My friends, I am but a boy. If my father were 
 here, you would have confidence in him ; but I have 
 courage : I will show myself worthy to command you. 
 If I advance, follow me; if I run away, kill me ; if I fall, 
 avenge me.' They shouted, Vive le Roi ! and we were 
 off." 
 
 "Are you aware that you are a hero, Henri?" asked 
 M. de Lescure, smiling with glistening eyes. 
 
 " Oh, very likely ! " and M. de la Rochejacquelein 
 laughed too, taking it all as a joke. " But tell me, if we 
 replace the King on the throne, do you think he would
 
 REWARDS. 3 
 
 give me a hussar regiment as a reward ? That is my 
 greatest desire." 
 
 " For my part I should like the Gardes Franchises 
 better," said M. de Lescure, seriously; "but perhaps it 
 would be rather a great thing for me. We shall see. At 
 present, what we have got to do is to fight." 
 
 Madame de Donissan was reconciled to the insurrec- 
 tion which seemed to have opened so well. 
 
 " It is every gentleman's duty to take up arms," she 
 said. 
 
 "That is what we hope they will do, madame," said 
 Henri. " There are corps forming everywhere ; the 
 peasants are rising on all sides. M. de Charette is 
 marching into Lower Anjou ; M. de Bonchamp and 
 M. d'Elbde are near him with Cathelineau and Stoflet; 
 M. de Royrand at Montaigne, and M. de Lyrot near 
 Nantes. Soon there will be but one parish that is not 
 on the march, and all the gatherings will find leaders." 
 
 "And is there an understanding between all these 
 chiefs, sir ? " asked M. de Donissan, who was the only one 
 who had any experience in war. 
 
 Henri coloured. 
 
 " Not as yet," he said ; " we of the Grand Army " 
 and he drew himself up proudly " are acting alone ; but 
 in time, the different corps will doubtless combine thefr 
 movements, and then we shall easily crush the Repub- 
 licans."
 
 84 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " Long live the King !" exclaimed Madame de Lescure, 
 enthusiastically ; and then turning to her husband, " You 
 will take me to Bressuire, will you not ? " she said. 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " Oh, you must ! I want to re-enter it in triumph ; and 
 besides, we must be in the midst of our friends must we 
 not, mother ? " and she looked at Madame de Donissan 
 imploringly. 
 
 Madame Boguet had had great difficulty in keeping 
 Celeste in the castle, which she had forced her daughters 
 to re-enter after the first moments of excitement ; but 
 since every one had been assembled in the saloon, the 
 wild little girl had gradually crept up to the sofa where 
 the " council of war," as she called it, was being held. 
 
 She sprang towards M. de Lescure, and seized his hand. 
 
 " Take me," she said. " I can ride very well. I will be 
 your little aide-de-camp if you like." 
 
 Madame de Lescure coloured deeply, and taking the 
 child gently by the arm, she tried to calm her, and to 
 make her sit beside her on the sofa. But the general 
 exultation had over-excited Celeste. 
 
 " I want to go and cut down the trees of liberty," she 
 repeated, " the one that was in front of our windows on 
 the Place. It grieved my eyes for a fortnight." 
 
 Madame Boguet had joined the group. She took her 
 daughter away ; but the child's ardour had prevailed, 
 and the departure for Bressuire was agreed upon.
 
 SUPPLIANTS. 85 
 
 Cries of " Long live the King ! " were heard in the 
 court ; but they were also shouting " To arms ! Here 
 are the Blues ! " 
 
 The officers went out hastily. 
 
 " Who is that young man with Henri ?" asked Madame 
 de Donissan of her daughter, coming to the window to 
 see what had occasioned the tumult. 
 
 " It is M. Forestier, the son of a shoemaker of La Pom- 
 mage, who has been educated by M. de Dommaigne. 
 He is an excellent officer. From what Henri says, we 
 must have all kinds of people in the army, mother." 
 
 " That is as it should be," said Madame de Donissan. 
 " The whole people gentlemen and peasants and towns- 
 people must unite to replace their King on the throne. 
 This is true equality and fraternity, about which they 
 talk so much, but which they practise so little. But what 
 do they want to do to those three men there ? There 
 they are, on their knees, begging for mercy." 
 
 " They are Bressuire people," said Madame de Lescure. 
 " I recognize them. But where can Henri be ? These 
 peasants are very angry." And rushing into the court, 
 she went to meet the troopers who were coming forward 
 sabre in hand. 
 
 " They said, ' Good day, citizen,' to me," cried a little 
 serving-boy. " I said, ' There are no citizens here. Long 
 live the King ! ' These are Blues." 
 
 The poor townspeople who had come to Clisson to
 
 86 THE LOYALISTS, 
 
 fetch their wives, who had taken refuge there, were about 
 to be murdered. The poor fellows were on their knees, 
 holding out their hands towards the Vendeans, but they 
 would not hear them. 
 
 At last Madame de Lescure caught sight of Pierre 
 Goureau, whom she had seen at the castle when he came 
 to fetch Henri, and ran towards him, 
 
 " For sake of your mother," she said, " spare these pool 
 men who have done no one any harm," 
 
 " My mother is dead but she would have spoken as 
 you do," said Pierre ; and he advanced to the suppliants, 
 who redoubled their cries, supposing that he was going 
 to cut their heads off. 
 
 M. de la Rochejacquelein had just come up. He spoke 
 to the peasants ; whilst Pierre, at a sign from Madame 
 de Lescure, put the townspeople into the kitchen, where 
 they changed their dress and put on white cockades. 
 
 Before letting them go, the Vendeans obliged them to 
 shout "Long live the King!" and they would have 
 shouted it as far as Parthenay, where they were about to 
 take refuge with their wives, if they had not been afraid 
 of meeting the Blues. 
 
 Their gratitude was so unbounded, that Madame de 
 Lescure returned to the saloon laughing, and saying, 
 
 " I don't think I shall save any more Blues, it is too 
 fatiguing. I had three women and five or six children 
 hanging on my dress, and overwhelming me with their
 
 ANOTHER MOVE. 8> 
 
 thanks. Come, mother, it is time to be going ; we will 
 leave Clisson in the hands of the patriots, since they think 
 themselves so well off here ! " And she laughed like a 
 child all alive with joy and hope. " We can come back 
 whenever we wish," she said. " You shall take me as far 
 as the cross-road to Boisine, mother; I am going with 
 Agathe as far as Madeleine's, to kiss my little girl." 
 
 " You are not thinking of taking her to Bressuire ? " 
 inquired her mother, for events had followed one another 
 so rapidly that there had been no time for consulting 
 one another. 
 
 " No, certainly not. She is best in the country, and 
 Madeleine is in less danger in her own home than she 
 would be with me. And, besides, what would she do 
 about her children ? Martial will be with us, in the 
 army; and also," she added, in a graver tone, "I wish 
 to be free to follow my husband everywhere to battle 
 to prison or to death. My child would impede my 
 movements : she is safe at Boisine." And Madame de 
 Lescure left the room with a stifled sigh.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE RISING. 
 
 [HE heavy carriage of Madame de Lescure was 
 nearing Bressuire, and already here and there 
 groups of peasants were to be seen on the 
 road. They were all armed, for the campaign had 
 opened. 
 
 "What are those men carrying?" asked Madame 
 Boguet, as she noticed from a distance a body of about 
 fifty peasants, who, after kneeling at the foot of a crucifix, 
 had just risen and resumed their weapons. 
 
 " They are Vendeans ! " cried Celeste, whose wit was 
 quicker and whose eyes were sharper than her mother's. 
 " Oh, the brave fellows ; how I do love them ! I should 
 like to hug them all ! " and she fidgeted so much in the 
 crowded coach, that her eldest sister authoritatively 
 ordered her to sit down again. 
 
 "They speak of scythes bound on to handles, said 
 Madame de Donissan ; " it is an ancient peasant weapon, 
 and as dangerous as it looks horrible. Poor fellows ! 
 they have hardly any guns 1 "
 
 MARIE JEANNE. 89 
 
 In fact, the groups were becoming more numerous 
 every minute, but almost all the peasants carried knives 
 or sickles fixed upon poles, spits, or even great clubs. 
 They believed themselves invincible, and curiosity drew 
 them near the carriage as if to make a parade of their 
 weapons. 
 
 " Who is it in the coach ? " they asked the coachman. 
 
 " It is Madame la Marquise de Lescure," he said. 
 " M. le Marquis is already at Bressuire, with the army." 
 
 " Ah ! it is a Marquise ! she is coming with us. So 
 much the better ; she will see that we are worthy fel- 
 lows," said the peasants, who, coming for the most part 
 from distant parishes of Anjou and Poitou, only knew 
 their landlord by name. 
 
 By the time it entered Bressuire, the coach was escorted 
 by a great crowd. M. de Donissan and M. de Marigny 
 were ready to receive them. 
 
 " I am going to walk about the town," said Madame 
 de Lescure, as she alighted. 
 
 " May I come with you, madame ? " eagerly asked 
 Celeste, who had already shaken hands with two or three 
 peasants, who were much astonished at her cordiality. 
 
 "Madame must come and see Marie Jeanne," cried 
 Pierre Goureau, who had formed part of the escort, and 
 who had just dismounted. 
 
 "Yes, yes!" was shouted through the ranks of the 
 Vendeans, who were beginning to press round Madame
 
 9 o THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 de Lescure. " She was a prisoner here, and we delivered 
 her ; but we did not see her when we arrived." 
 
 " No : the Blues who guarded her had escaped, and 
 she was gone already." 
 
 " And the child was she with her ? " 
 
 " Yes, certainly ; all the ladies who were in the coach. 
 The old lady too she is her mother." And they pressed 
 forward to look at Madame de Lescure. 
 
 " Here is Marie Jeanne, I am sure ! " cried Celeste, 
 who had quite understood from the language of the 
 peasants that they were speaking of a piece of cannon. 
 But Madame de Lescure, expecting to see a woman held 
 in great veneration by the peasantry, looked around her 
 in bewilderment. 
 
 " There she is ! " cried the child, running fonvard 
 towards a twelve-pounder which had been carried off 
 from Richelieu Castle, where it had been placed formerly 
 by the Cardinal. It was beautifully carved, and covered 
 with inscriptions in honour of Louis XIII. The Re- 
 publicans had carried it off from Richelieu, and lost it 
 at the first fight at Chollet. 
 
 Celeste had planted her foot on the gun-carriage, and, 
 springing lightly up, had seated herself upon the cannon, 
 round which she threw her slender arms, lavishing her 
 kisses upon the senseless bronze. 
 
 All the peasants hailed the action with delight 
 
 "That is the way we took her!" they said. "The
 
 MARIE JEANNE'S SISTER. 91 
 
 strongest jumped upon her to hinder her from doing any 
 mischief. Heie are Pierre and Mathurin, who bestrid 
 her like a horse ; and the Blues soon drew back, for they 
 saw clearly that we meant to have Marie Jeanne. Now 
 she has found her good angel in mademoiselle there, 
 Marie Jeanne will always give us the victory ! " 
 
 And the poor men, falling on their knees, thanked God 
 for having sent a guardian angel to their beloved cannon, 
 to protect it against the enemy. 
 
 Celeste was a little frightened. She durst not get down 
 from the position she had so thoughtlessly taken up ; she 
 was afraid of displeasing the peasants. She coloured, and 
 tears came into her eyes, Madame de Lescure saw. 
 
 " Give me your hand, my child," she said, gently. 
 
 The Vendeans had risen, but no one made any ob- 
 jection to the child's retreat. 
 
 " She is Marie Jeanne's little sister," they said, as they 
 went home ; and Madame de Lescure led away with her 
 the child, who was still overawed and silent. 
 
 She heard two peasants in her escort lamenting that 
 they had no tobacco. She turned round. 
 
 " Have the Blues carried off all the tobacco in Bres- 
 suire ? " she asked, laughing. 
 
 " No, madame," said the peasant, ashamed at having 
 been overheard ; " only we have no money." 
 
 "I have some," murmured Celeste, eagerly putting 
 her hand into her pocket.
 
 9 2 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " Keep your fortune, Marie Jeanne's little sister ! " said 
 Madame de Lescure, laughing. "I undertake the to- 
 bacco." And, going into M. Gady's shop, which they 
 were just passing, she bought several pounds of tobacco, 
 which she distributed to the peasants, whilst Celeste was 
 laughing and talking with Catherine and Marie, who had 
 returned to Bressuire the evening before. 
 
 " Now M. de Lescure is here we are in no danger/' 
 Madame Gady had said to her husband ; " and every 
 day that the shop remains shut, makes my heart bleed." 
 
 She had done well to re-open her shop, for the twenty 
 thousand men who were occupying Bressuire must needs 
 eat in spite of their poverty, and a certain number of 
 them did not despise M. Gady's brandy. A few slight 
 attempts at pillage had at first been made, but they had 
 been promptly repressed by the leaders, and the soldiers 
 paid for all they took. 
 
 " Where is Jean ? " Celeste asked Catherine. " He did 
 not come to Clisson, and I have not seen him in the 
 town." 
 
 The young girl coloured. 
 
 " He is not here," she said. 
 
 " Is he gone to the Green Farm ? " persisted Celeste, 
 who had heard the little romance of the house from 
 Agathe. 
 
 " No ! " said Catherine, almost in a passion ; " he is at 
 Thouars with General Quetineau."
 
 DIFFERENCE Ofi OPINION. 93 
 
 Celeste had a good mind to be angry too ; but Madame 
 de Lescure had finished her distribution, and she called 
 Celeste. 
 
 Madame Gady had heard Catherine, and bid her be 
 quiet, for the Vendeans were all round the shop. 
 
 " How could you say that Jean is at Thouars ? " said 
 the good shopkeeper, in a low voice. " You will have us 
 all killed." 
 
 "Jean will avenge us!" said Catherine, proudly; but 
 her mother did not appreciate this consolation, and dryly 
 ordered her to hold her tongue. 
 
 Catherine was not yet revolutionary enough to disobey 
 her parents, but she muttered between her teeth, 
 
 " When Antoine comes back, I shall be able to say 
 what I think about the brigands."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF THOUARS. 
 
 |N leaving Bressuire, General Quetineau" had 
 shut himself up in Thouars. He had brought 
 with him Jean Gady, to whom he had taken a 
 fancy, besides that the young man was useful to him, 
 owing to the intelligence he received from Bressuire. 
 
 Since the town had been occupied by the Royalists, 
 the patriots neither dare stir nor send tidings to the 
 General ; but Catherine let her brother know what was 
 going on by the merchants who came to supply the shops 
 with provisions. She sent him word in this way that 
 they were preparing to march upon Thouars, and that 
 the ladies were about to leave Bressuire and shut them- 
 selves up in the Castle of La Boulaye. 
 
 " The patriots would be able easily to re-take our 
 town," she said. 
 
 Jean communicated to the General all the information 
 he received from his sister. Quetineau was a brave Re- 
 publican, sincerely attached to his cause, and courage-
 
 THOUARS. 95 
 
 ously devoted to it, though without cruelty or excessive 
 harshness. 
 
 " Before we re-take Bressuire, we must keep Thouars," 
 he said, with a smile at Catherine's tactics. 
 
 Jean coloured. 
 
 " My sister says that because she would be very glad 
 to see us again," he said. 
 
 " I know, I know, my lad ; but these brigands will be 
 upon us before we can prepare ourselves for defence." 
 
 And he went out to survey the fortifications. 
 
 The surest defence of the town was the river Thone, 
 which almost surrounded it. It was deep and rapid, and 
 crossed by two bridges, upon which the General at once 
 posted troops ; but the approach of the Royalist army 
 was already announced. 
 
 They advanced upon different points. The river offered 
 some fords which were practicable for resolute men, but 
 M. de Lescure and his cousin took their way towards the 
 bridge of Vrine. A crowd of Vendeans pressed on behind 
 them, marching in a disorderly manner, and jostling one 
 another, whilst a few mounted officers tried to regulate 
 their march. 
 
 In the midst a very young horseman, with light hair 
 hidden under a broad-brimmed hat, thrust his horse 
 behind M. de Lescure, seeming to avoid his sight, whilst 
 he followed his movements, called the peasants together, 
 and repeated the orders of the Generals.
 
 96 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " Had you seen that little officer before ? " M. de Les- 
 cure asked of Henri, suddenly. 
 
 " No," he answered, almost without looking ; " I sup- 
 pose he comes with M. de Scepaux or M. d'Elbee." 
 
 " Then why has he attached himself to us ? Supposing 
 he were a spy ? " 
 
 " There is not much to spy out amongst us," said 
 Henri, laughing. " We go straight on our way. Come, 
 my lads ! let us go and take this bridge." 
 
 The Blues held their ground, and the powder was 
 nearly exhausted : the little officer had disappeared ! 
 M. de la Rochejacquelein rode off full speed to fetch a 
 supply from Bressuire, but half-way he met some soldiers 
 carrying cartridges. 
 
 " Who gave you such a good idea ? " he asked. 
 
 "A very young officer came to give the order," said 
 the astonished peasants. 
 
 " Well done ! this spy seems to be our good angel ! " 
 and he returned to the fight, accompanied by the Ven- 
 deans who had brought the ammunition. 
 
 Thrice had M. de Lescure attacked the bridge with- 
 out making the Republicans give way ; but just as his 
 cousin returned, he perceived a slight movement of fatigue 
 amongst them, and seized a gun at once. 
 
 " Follow me !" he shouted to his soldiers ; and striding 
 down the steep bank, he rushed upon the bridge, in the
 
 FOLLOW ME ! " HIS SHOUTED TO HIS SOLDIERS. p. 96
 
 98 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " There is the breach for you ! " he said ; and the 
 peasants, clambering up to the assault like so many cats, 
 threw themselves into the town. 
 
 M. de Bonchamp's division had crossed the ford, and 
 was attacking the town on another point. 
 
 " There is no means of defending yourselves, sirs," said 
 General Quetineau, forced to yield to fate, to show the 
 white flag, and ask for terms. 
 
 "Republicans don't capitulate," said one of the ad- 
 ministrators, proudly. 
 
 " Well," said the General, calmly, " the battalion which 
 defended the Ford au Riche has let itself be killed to 
 the last man ; but here we have the fate of the town in 
 our hands. It is for you to decide, sirs, whether you 
 wish us all to bury ourselves under the ruins of Thouars." 
 
 " If I had a pistol, I would blow my brains out !" cried 
 the unfortunate functionary. 
 
 " Here ! " and the General gravely offered him one of 
 the pistols from his belt : " it is loaded." 
 
 The administrator drew back, and the capitulation was 
 resolved upon. 
 
 The gates were opened to M. de Bonchamp and M. 
 d'Elbee at the very moment that the troops on the other 
 side of the town cleared the ramparts, and the Vendeans 
 met one another in the town. 
 
 M. de Bonchamp shook hands with General Quetineau ; 
 the administrators had gathered round M. de Lescure and
 
 A REPUBLIC AM GENERAL. 99 
 
 Henri, whom they knew, and implored them to protect 
 them a little. 
 
 M. de la Rochejacquelein laughed. 
 
 "Let us proceed, gentlemen," he said. "They will 
 think we are your prisoners." 
 
 The peasants had already laid hold of all the conform- 
 ing priests, and the officers had them thrown into prison 
 by way of protecting them. 
 
 M. de Lescure went in search of General Quetineau, 
 whom he had known formerly, and found that the Ven- 
 dean leaders had had quarters assigned them in the house 
 which he occupied. 
 
 The brave Republican was seated on a straw chair, with 
 his head on his hands. He looked up on the entrance 
 of M. de Lescure, but did not move. He only said, in 
 a firm and simple tone, without pride or meanness, 
 
 "I saw your closed shutters as I left Bressuire, sir. 
 You thought you were forgotten, but it was not from any 
 want of memory that I left you your liberty." 
 
 " I thank you," said M. de Lescure, " and I give you 
 yours. You may go, but you Would do better to stay 
 with us. You should not fight : it is not your cause ; but 
 you would be a prisoner on parole you would be well 
 treated. It is dangerous to fail amongst you. Take care, 
 or misfortune will befall you." 
 
 Que"tineau rose and looked the gentleman in the face. 
 
 " I know it, sir ; but, although it may be a case of the 
 
 72
 
 100 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 guillotine, I should be dishonoured if I were suspected 
 of an understanding with the enemy. I will prove that 
 I have done my duty.** 
 
 M. de Bonchamp, who came in soon after, added his 
 entreaties ; but Quetineau was inflexible. 
 
 The peasants were astonished at the respect shown to 
 the Republican officer. 
 
 " What is he doing there with our officers ? and in their 
 very house ! " they said. 
 
 Stoflet, even less delicate than the soldiers, wished to 
 tear off the General's tricolour cockade. He covered it 
 with his hand, and his eyes shot lightnings, but he was 
 unarmed. M. d'Elbde came forward. 
 
 "For my sake, M. Stoflet will not, I am sure, wound 
 the feelings of the brave General Quetineau," he said, 
 with his usual politeness and respect j and Stoflet retired, 
 grumbling. 
 
 " The General will sleep in my room," M. de Bonchamp 
 said. 
 
 All the windows which looked out upon the square 
 were open. The peasants murmured. 
 
 " Suppose he were to kill M. le Marquis in the night ?" 
 they said; "these Blues regard nothing." And when 
 M. de Bonchamp wished to retire, taking his companion 
 with him, he found the neighbourhood of his bed-room 
 guarded by a troop of peasants. 
 " Go to bed," he said in surprise.
 
 THE PEASANTS' ANXIETY. IQI 
 
 " We beg pardon, M. le Marquis. We are all from the 
 barony," they said, laughing, " and we won't let you sleep 
 alone with a Republican." 
 
 " My bed is not big enough for you all," said M. de 
 Bonchamp, laughing too : " get you gone ! " 
 
 He went to bed and to sleep. 
 
 Que"tineau, agitated by sad thoughts, was still awake 
 when he heard the door open softly. He raised himself 
 on his elbow, and saw by the light of the moon, which 
 shone full into the little room, a man glide up to M. de 
 Bonchamp's bed, and lie down at the foot of it without 
 making any noise. By the same light the Republican 
 saw the bayonets of two or three sentinels glittering at 
 the door. 
 
 " The brave fellows are very much afraid of me," said 
 the General, smiling. " If they only knew ! " and laying 
 his head on the pillow, he lell asleep. 
 
 When M. de Bonchamp opened his eyes at daybreak, 
 he saw his gamekeeper lying on the ground at the foot 
 of his bed. "What are you about here?" he asked, 
 putting his hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " I was keeping watch upon the Blue," said the peasant, 
 seriously, shaking himself awake ; " but I was so tired 
 that I fell asleep." 
 
 " What a set of fools you are ! Get you gone ! " said 
 M. de Bonchamp ; but there were tears in his eyes when 
 he perceived the sentinels who had watched all night a.t 
 his cjopr,
 
 102 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 As soon as it was day, Jean Gady made his way to the 
 General to ask for his orders. 
 
 "There are no longer any orders, my boy," he said, 
 sadly. " Berenger is in prison at Paris ; Lygonier is 
 already accused by Marat ; Chabbas has no army, and 
 will not be able to hold his own at La Chataigneraie. 
 They don't give us any soldiers : we have only volunteers 
 who don't know how to fight." 
 
 Jean drew himself up indignantly. 
 
 "There are born soldiers like you," continued the 
 General, kindly, " but you yourself know how badly we 
 are supported in the midst of an insurgent country, where 
 everything must be taken by force. I am going to Paris 
 to defend my conduct. We shall see what the Committee 
 will say to it." And the General hid his face in his hands. 
 
 " Let me come with you, citizen General," said young 
 Gady ; " and if you are sent to the frontiers, I will go 
 with you." 
 
 " I am much more likely to be sent to the guillotine," 
 said the General, gloomily. 
 
 "I don't wish to die by the axe," cried Gady, "but 
 I am quite ready to meet death in any place but this ! " 
 and he lowered his voice. 
 
 " I cannot take you with me," said the General. 
 
 " Then I will get myself killed on the first opportunity," 
 muttered the young man. " It is hell itself to be so near 
 Marthe without seeing her 1 " And he went out
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AT THE GREEN FARM. 
 
 [ENERAL QUETINEAU had started for 
 
 Paris, where death awaited him ; and the 
 Vendeans were projecting an attack upon 
 Fontenay. M. de Lescure had received tidings from the 
 Castle of La Boulaye. 
 
 "Whilst you were gaining such a victory," his wife 
 wrote to him, "we were very anxious here. We were 
 looking for Celeste the whole day without finding her. 
 At one time I was afraid that the silly little thing must 
 have followed the army; the peasants would, I knew, 
 have helped her, because they say she is Marie Jeanne's 
 little sister ; but at night we found her in her bed, very 
 feverish indeed, and she has been ill ever since, but we 
 can get nothing out ot her. Her mother weeps even 
 more abundantly than usual, and Marie is impenetrable. 
 I should have liked very much to have come and seen 
 you before you took Fontenay." 
 
 " How fast she goes ! " said M. de Lescure, as he re- 
 folded the letter ; " Fontenay is not taken yet." And he 
 thought no more about Celeste.
 
 104 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 The child was soon well again, but she had not let out 
 her secret. She used to take walks in the neighbourhood 
 of the castle. The Republicans had not reappeared, and 
 the Royalist army had recalled its detachments so as 
 to be able to march upon Fontenay. The peasants who 
 had almost all returned home after the taking of Thouars 
 had again left their cottages loaded with bread and other 
 provisions ; and the country was deserted, but quiet. 
 The field labours were almost everywhere behindhand, 
 for the weak arms of women and children could not 
 suffice for all the duties which were laid upon them. 
 
 Vast tracts of fallow ground covered by little herds of 
 cattle, which grazed the scanty grass in the fields, moors 
 covered with furze in full bloom, fields which should have 
 been cultivated but remained untouched all this vast 
 solitude was the undisputed property of the inhabitants 
 of La Boulaye, who nevertheless made no use of it. 
 
 Madame de Donissan had preserved the habits she 
 had acquired at Court, and hardly ever went out on foot. 
 Madame de Lescure had plenty to do in corresponding 
 with her husband, and seeing to the provisions which he 
 required. Madame Boguet, delicate, and full of alarms, 
 shut herself into her own room with her daughter Marie ; 
 but Celeste made Louise come out into the fields with 
 her. She used to visit the peasant women, making them 
 tell her all about the military exploits of their husbands 
 or sons. One day she got as far as a farm which she did 
 not know, and, as it was hot, the two young girls and 
 the woman who was with them went into the house tg 
 $sk for a cup of milk,
 
 MARTHE. 105 
 
 The kitchen was empty, but at sight of them a grown- 
 up girl came out of the stable. 
 
 " Finish getting the oxen ready," she cried : " I am 
 coming back." And she entered the house with a resolute 
 step. Celeste looked at her in surprise. 
 
 " I seem to have seen that face somewhere before ! " 
 she said to herself. " Oh, yes ! in M. Gady's shop the 
 day we arrived at Bressuire." And setting down her 
 half-empty glass, " Do you often go to the town ? " she 
 asked the peasant girl. " I have seen you there once." 
 
 Marthe trembled. " I go nowhere," she said. 
 
 " Yes, but I did see you one day in M. Gady's shop, 
 whilst we were shut up in the back shop with Madame 
 de Lescure and her mother. You were buying soap." 
 
 The peasant girl slowly raised a pair of such sad eyes 
 that Celeste was daunted. 
 
 " The last day of my life ! " she said under her breath ( 
 and in so plaintive a tone that the child looked at her to 
 see if she were dead ; but Marthe was still standing in 
 the middle of the kitchen. 
 
 " Do you sometimes go back to Bressuire, mademoi- 
 selle ? she asked at length. 
 
 " We are at La Boulaye now, but I was at Bressuire 
 not long ago." And Celeste turned crimson as she 
 spoke. " I passed M. Gady's house, where I had seen 
 you : Catherine and Marie were working at the door. 
 Jean was at Thouars with General Qu^tineau : perhaps 
 he is gone to Paris with him." 
 
 Marthe trembled a,ll over.
 
 106 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " Are you cold ? " asked Louise, who had listened in 
 silence to her sister's chatter. 
 
 " No." And at that instant the idiot Rougeau came 
 into the kitchen. 
 
 " If the oxen are to plough their furrow this afternoon, 
 it must be time to bring them out," he said. 
 
 Marthe made no answer, but she took a great whip 
 which was leaning against the wall. 
 
 "Do you plough?" asked Celeste, in surprise. 
 
 " All the men are gone," answered Marthe ; and her 
 sweet sonorous voice called the oxen, who lowed in 
 answer. " Here Chatain, Moreau, Rougeau, Nobbet." 
 
 The powerful animals shook their yoke, impatient to 
 come out of the stable, and the young girl and the idiot 
 guided them. Celeste ran after Marthe. 
 
 " If I go to Bressuire, shall I give your love to the 
 Gadys ? " she said, laughing. 
 
 " Never speak of me," said Marthe, pressing her plough 
 into the already-begun furrow, without turning or looking 
 up. 
 
 At the end of the field she stopped. The visitors 
 were out of sight, and the idiot was looking for birds' 
 nests in the hedge. Marthe rested her head between the 
 horns of one of her oxen, and cried long and bitterly. 
 
 " If I could only have seen him once more ! " she 
 murmured.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 REVERSE AND RECOVERY, 
 
 CHATAIGNERAIE had been taken, and 
 the Royalists must march upon Fontenay. 
 
 " Peasants abound here," wrote Madame de 
 Lescure to her husband ; " they are coming back to their 
 homes, and all those that I meet excuse themselves by 
 saying they have not seen their wives for a week. I send 
 as many of them back as I can, but I am afraid you must 
 be in great want of men for the attack upon Fontenay." 
 
 She was not mistaken. These undisciplined and inex- 
 perienced Vendean troops generally triumphed from their 
 number and their dashing courage, but many parishes 
 failed to answer the call on the i6th of May, when they 
 wanted to carry Fontenay, and the soldiers were dis- 
 couraged. 
 
 The leaders had not made their dispositions well. The 
 artillery had been placed at a point where it was useless ; 
 and the Republicans, making a sortie, repulsed M. de 
 Lescure, who had at first penetrated into the suburbs. 
 M. d'Elbee was wounded, and a body of two hundred 
 men was broken up and taken prisoners.
 
 io8 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 M. de la Rochejacquelein, always in the van, had rushed 
 forward to bring back the cannon, but he could only save 
 those of his own division ; and the greater part of the 
 artillery, including the much-prized Marie Jeanne, re- 
 mained in the hands of the besieged, who also carried 
 off a crowd of prisoners. 
 
 The cannon were still upon the field of battle, but the 
 Vendeans had disappeared except one small body com- 
 manded by Pierre and Jacques Goureau, consisting en- 
 tirely of peasants from St. Aubin and the Aubiers, who 
 had been charged by Henri to defend an important post. 
 Absorbed in the heat of fight, they had not noticed the 
 retreat of the army until suddenly Pierre raised his head 
 as he drew back his bayonet after killing a Blue. 
 
 " We are quite alone," he said. 
 
 In truth, there were no more enemies near them, and 
 their friends had forgotten them. 
 
 " Marie Jeanne is down there ! " cried Jacques, casting 
 a hasty glance over the field of battle. " We must guard 
 her ! " and setting off in a run, the peasants rushed upon 
 the cannon just as the Republicans, returning from the 
 pursuit, were intending to carry off the artillery. 
 
 " One moment ! " cried Pierre. "You don't get Marie 
 Jeanne so easily. Courage, my friends ! " And bestrid- 
 ing the cannon, he covered it with his body. 
 
 As at length he fell pierced by twenty-six wounds, he 
 heard Jacques' voice by his side say, " It is all over ! " 
 and the sound of a body rolling heavily to the ground 
 told him that his brother was dead.
 
 PIERRE'S CAPTURE. 109 
 
 Pierre dragged himself to him, and closed his eyes, 
 making the sign of the cross ; then he let himself sink 
 down by the side of the corpse. 
 
 He was the only one who still breathed. His twenty- 
 four companions had all been killed around the guns. 
 He was tied to the carriage of Marie Jeanne, and brought 
 back almost dying to Fontenay, where he was thrown 
 into prison, the enemy having mistaken him for a leader 
 on seeing him directing the defence of the guns. 
 
 Ill, and trembling with fever, he was conducted to the 
 district to be interrogated. The administrators were 
 numerous and triumphant. 
 
 " It is M. Sapinond de la Verre," they said. " He comes 
 from the farther part of Anjou." 
 
 The Mayor of the town burst out laughing. 
 
 " It is a true peasant : look at his hands ! " he said ; 
 and in truth spite his wounds and loss of blood the 
 great toil-hardened hands of the tiller of the soil, left no 
 doubt of the laborious life that Pierre had led ; and the 
 interest was diminished. 
 
 "What is your name ? " they asked. 
 
 " Pierre Goureau, husbandman, from St. Aubin." 
 
 " Why did you enter the rebel army ? " 
 
 " On account of the conscription." 
 
 " How was your army organized ? " 
 
 " The boldest put themselves forward and went to fetch 
 M. Henri." 
 
 " De la Rochejacquelein ? " 
 
 " Certainly : we always call him M. Henri."
 
 HO THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " Is there pay amongst you ? How do you live ? 
 
 " Those who have money pay their own expenses. On 
 my part, J have spent fifteen pounds already. Those 
 who have none, get food however they can." 
 
 " Do you even know what you are fighting about ? " 
 asked the Syndic Procurator, ironically. 
 
 The Vendean looked him full in the face. 
 
 " It is to have a King, for religion, and to have priests 
 who have not taken the oath." 
 
 "And for the gentlemen's ambition," added the ma- 
 gistrate. 
 
 "What are they ambitious of?" cried the peasant. 
 " Of receiving more blows than others, of always march- 
 ing first, and of being in want of food like us ! M. Henri 
 need never have left La Durbelliere. We asked him to 
 come, and he came, to please us and for the service of 
 God." 
 
 The wounded man had turned pale, and could hardly 
 stand. 
 
 " Take him back to prison," said the Syndic ; and the 
 jailer pushed Pierre so roughly that he fell down with a 
 groan, and they were obliged to carry him. 
 
 " If there are many men as resolute as that one," said 
 a municipal officer, " we shall have a good deal of trouble 
 with them." 
 
 The General looked anxious. He had just learnt that 
 the Vendeans had re-assembled at La Chataigneraie. 
 
 " We shall be attacked again," he said. " To-morrow 
 we must get rid of all the prisoners."
 
 DEJECTION. 1 1 1 
 
 He doubled the sentries, and asked for reinforcements 
 from the neighbouring garrisons ; but these were all 
 threatened, and only a little body of volunteers arrived 
 at daybreak, being the remainder of .the troops who had 
 defended Thouars, who had been re-united by Jean 
 Gady after the departure of General Quetineau. To 
 them was confided the defence of the artillery. Gady 
 undertook to work "Marie Jeanne," pointed this time 
 against the Vendeans. 
 
 " I will make her growl well to-morrow," he said, " and 
 then I hope I shall meet with a bullet. I have had 
 enough of it. These mad fellows don't yield, nor does 
 Marthe. I am glad I have never come across Pierre or 
 Jacques." 
 
 He did not know that Jacques was already sleeping in 
 the ditch into which the bodies had been thrown indis- 
 criminately, and that but a step from his post, in a barn 
 open to all weathers. Pierre was tossing feverishly upon 
 a pallet, without help or friends. 
 
 " If Marthe was here, she would give me some water 1 " 
 sighed the wounded man. 
 
 For a time the deepest depression had laid hold of the 
 Vendeans ; the peasants had dispersed in great numbers, 
 and provisions were very scarce ; but the leaders had not 
 lost heart, and they possessed a treasure. 
 
 They had found at Thouars a man in the dress of a 
 volunteer, who had said he was a priest, and had ended 
 by assuring them that he had been secretly consecrated 
 Bishop of Agen at St, Germains. Some people having
 
 112 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 recognized him, had begged him to accompany the army. 
 He had consented, although he made some difficulties, 
 and they had prepared to bring him there with great 
 state. He was asked to preach, to excite the courage o* 
 the soldiers, who, when they learnt that they had a bishop 
 amongst them, followed his steps with delight, forgetting 
 their defeats, and quite ready to march to battle once 
 more. 
 
 "Our holy father has sent us a bishop to take care 
 of us ! " they cried in delight, and they advanced upon 
 Fontenay. 
 
 " We have no powder," said M. de Lescure, who was 
 marching with his cousin at the head of the left wing ; 
 " and there is a battery of cannon down there waiting 
 for us." 
 
 "There is no powder, my lads!" said Henri, aloud. 
 " We must take the cannon with broomsticks ! We are 
 going to seize Marie Jeanne ! She will be the prize of 
 the best runner ! " And he set spurs to his horse. 
 
 M. de Lescure's peasantry advanced but slowly. They 
 were doubtful whether to follow him. 
 
 " Long live the King ! " he shouted, and marched alone 
 upon the battery. 
 
 A fire of grape-shot at once enveloped Henr' and hid 
 him from sight 
 
 " The Blues don't know how to fire ! " he shouted. " M} 
 boot is torn, that is all ! " 
 
 The peasants had set off running, their General having 
 put his horse to a gallop, and they all advanced towards
 
 A PRISONER. H3 
 
 the battery. They were within range of the cannon when 
 they came to a great crucifix by the side of the road, 
 and the peasants stopped and knelt down. 
 
 The officers who surrounded M. de Lescure wished to 
 force them to proceed. 
 
 " Let them pray to God," quietly answered their leader, 
 who had also stopped. 
 
 Soon they continued their course, and going round the 
 battery, reached the gates of Fontenay. These were open, 
 to enable the Republicans to accomplish their retreat. 
 
 Once more the peasants took fright, and M. de Lescure 
 found himself fighting alone by the side of M. de Bon- 
 champ, who had joined him. 
 
 " To the prison ! " he shouted, " before they can murder 
 our friends ! " 
 
 At every step he was delayed by terror-stricken Blues, 
 who offered to give themselves up. 
 
 M. de Lescure was alone, when a Republican, who 
 had thrown down his gun, took it up again and fired at 
 him but missed his aim. M. de Lescure turned to his 
 peasants, who were following him at a distance. 
 
 " Bring along that prisoner," he said. 
 
 The Vendeans, furious, and ashamed of the danger to 
 which they had exposed their General, had murdered the 
 enemy before M. de Lescure could snatch him from them. 
 He was furious, and swore for the first time in his life. 
 
 " Cowards that you are ! " he said. " First you are 
 afraid, and then you murder your prisoners ! " and his 
 eyes glared fiercely.
 
 ir4 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " It does not do to vex M. le Marquis," said the 
 peasants. 
 
 They had thrown open the prison, and the liberated 
 Vendeans picked up the guns which had been dropped 
 Jn the streets, but Marie Jeanne was not yet recovered. 
 
 M. de Marigny, who had just entered the town at the 
 head of the cavalry, rushed in the direction of it, and saw 
 in the distance a group of peasants who were fighting 
 round the piece. At their head, and close to Marie Jeanne, 
 an officer mounted on a little horse was encouraging the 
 Vendeans. He bore no arms, and his voice was clear 
 and shrill. 
 
 " It is our little provider at Thouars ! " cried M. de 
 Marigny, and pressed forward. He was riding the horse 
 of a gendarme he had killed some days before, and a 
 body of Republicans, who came forward to defend the 
 artillery, took him for one of themselves. 
 
 " There are twenty-five thousand francs offered to him 
 who saves Marie Jeanne, comrades," they said ; " let us 
 go and defend her ! " 
 
 " I '11 be first ! " cried M. de Marigny, and he put 
 himself at their head. 
 
 They were near, and already heard a little voice re- 
 peating, " Courage, friends ! Marie Jeanne is ours, and she 
 is the pledge of victory ! " 
 
 M. de Marigny turned towards the Blues who were 
 following him : he had taken out his pistol. 
 
 " Marie Jeanne is ours ! " he said, blowing out the 
 brains of the two who were neaiest to him ; and then,
 
 MARIE JEANNE RETAKEN. 115 
 
 dashing into the midst of the peasants, he seized z. gun, 
 and quietly using his weapon as though it had been 
 planted upon a gun-carriage, he made 'the feeble re- 
 mainder of the assailants retreat. 
 
 The little officer had leant against the cannon, pale 
 and silent ever since M. de Marigny had assumed the 
 command of the peasants. An involuntary movement 
 had pushed back his hat ; and at the moment when 
 M. de Marigny was turning his horse, and ordering the 
 Vendeans to bring away the piece, his glance encountered 
 a pair of blue eyes, with a half-supplicating, half-triumph- 
 ant expression, and he restrained an exclamation of 
 astonishment with great difficulty. 
 
 " Come ! " was all he said, and the child followed him 
 in silence without answering. " Who did you come here 
 with ? " he asked, when the peasants were engaged in 
 dragging their cannon through the streets in triumph. 
 
 " With Marthe Goureau, who wanted news of her 
 brothers," she said under her breath, and she added, still 
 without raising her eyes, " I knew they were going to get 
 Marie Jeanne back." 
 
 "She is retaken, and now you must go back to La 
 Boulaye," M. de Marigny said gently. 
 
 She made no resistance, for her warlike ardour was 
 cooled down, and she was ashamed of her thoughtless 
 conduct. Three old peasants reconducted her in safety 
 to La Boulaye ; and her protector told no one of the 
 escapade. It was late when she reached La Boulaye. 
 
 She glided unperceived into liei: sisters' room, and con- 
 
 82
 
 Ii6 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 fessed to her mother next day the cause of the absence 
 which had caused her so much anxiety. Madame Boguet 
 wept, but she was quite unable to control her daughter's 
 strong will and highly-wrought imagination. Celeste bent 
 towards her eldest sister, and whispered in her ear, 
 
 " M. de Marigny only said, ' You must tell Mdlle. Marie 
 not to be afraid. No one recognized you but me.' " 
 
 At night the peasants said over their guns, " It was 
 Marie Jeanne's good angel who came to help us retake 
 her. No one has seen her since we turned into the street." 
 
 The old Vendeans, having taken the opportunity to go 
 and see their wives, had not yet returned to the army, 
 and M. de Marigny had kept the secret
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 PIERRE'S ADVENTURES. 
 
 HILST the Vendeans were forming as a pre- 
 lude to new victories a Superior Council 
 charged with the administration of the stores 
 of the insurrection, and looking after the subsistence of 
 such peasants as were too poor to furnish their own pro- 
 visions, whilst they were electing brave Cathelineau the 
 wool carrier as General-in-Chief of the army, of which 
 all the corps were commanded by gentlemen, Marthe 
 Goureau never left the field of battle, from which they 
 had not yet had time to remove the dead. They had 
 hardly been able even to carry away the wounded, and in 
 the sad visit which she paid to the bodies, it often chanced 
 that she came upon sufferers who still breathed men 
 who, having fainted, had been unable to call to their aid 
 the peasants whose business it was to carry the sick to 
 the ambulance which had just been hastily arranged, 
 thanks to the exertions of the Filles de la Sagesse, a 
 religious order of the country. 
 
 The young girl's courage did not fail. She sought for 
 traces of her two brothers and of the man whom she
 
 IiS THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 loved even whilst she gave him up. Every fortification, 
 every corner of a ditch, every bush revealed a dead body ; 
 the attack had been as active as the resistance, and 
 Vendeans lay mingled with Republican volunteers. 
 
 Marthe had seated herself upon the trunk of a tree 
 which the Blues had placed in front of the batteries to 
 impede the progress of the peasants, and was looking 
 round her without seeing anything. She had not found 
 her brothers, and none of their companions had seen 
 them. The Republicans had fled, and she dare not ask 
 any one if they had seen Jean Gady amongst the com- 
 batants. She prayed in her agony. This war, which for 
 her had opened with such a cruel sacrifice, was gradually 
 carrying away from her all that she loved. 
 
 " But for the Green Farm, and my mother's grave, I 
 would join the good sisters," she said to herself ; " but 
 if Jean lived he would never forgive me." And, in spite 
 of herself, she went back to dream once more of a happy 
 peaceful time, when Jean should return to his faith, and 
 she might marry him when the war was over, and every 
 one had submitted to the King and the holy father. 
 
 Whilst she was giving herself up to her hopes, her eye 
 fell upon a ditch by the side of the road, shaded by a 
 weeping willow, whose long branches swept the waters of 
 a little pond, and fell back again into the ditch. Marthe 
 thought she saw a scrap of cloth through the leaves, and 
 ran to the place. She perceived the body of a dragoon 
 lying face downwards in the ditch, and letting herself 
 glide down the verdant slope, sne reached the bottom.
 
 JEAN'S DEATH. II 9 
 
 Her feet touched the edge of the cloak. The black curly 
 locks of the soldier made her start : shuddering, and with 
 icy cold hands, she clung to the branches of the tree, 
 and succeeded with one hand in turning the poor fellow 
 over. With closed eyes, pale lips, and forehead disfigured 
 by a large wound, still it was Jean, and she let go the 
 branch that upheld her, and let herself slip down to him. 
 She pressed him in her arms, and kneeling by his side 
 on the damp grass, breathed on his mouth, and tried to 
 warm him against her heart. She thought she heard a 
 faint breath she would not believe that he was dead. 
 All at once the hands which she held in hers escaped 
 from her; the dying man had raised his arm. His eyes 
 opened, and he looked at Marthe. 
 
 " I expected you !" he said. And, letting his head fall 
 back on the girl's shoulder, he gave one sigh, and died. 
 
 She could not believe it. She called him; she entreated 
 him to look at her once more, promising to live for him 
 if he would recover for her. In vain : the cold of death 
 chilled the limbs already stiffened by the torture of 
 twenty-four hours of agony. When the Vendean patrols 
 passed over the field of battle that evening, they found 
 Marthe lying fainting upon the body of Jean. 
 
 When the poor girl came to herself in the little room 
 of the ambulance to which they had carried her, she 
 found herself lying upon one of the sisters' beds. Still 
 trembling with the blow she had received, she slid to the 
 ground and finished her prayer the cry of a desolate 
 heart to Him who bindeth up the wounds ; and then she
 
 120 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 was preparing to go out, when she saw in the street, pass- 
 ing the window, a tall man, thin and weak, and walking 
 with a stick, but looking something like the elder of her 
 brothers. She held out her arms to him, crying, 
 
 " Pierre ! " 
 
 The wounded man looked up. 
 
 " Marthe ! " he said ; and she rushed to him. 
 
 Her first word was a question. " Where is Jacques ? " 
 
 " Killed in the first attack upon the guns. That was 
 where I was wounded." 
 
 " But how was it no one knew what was become of 
 you ? " she persisted. 
 
 " I am the only one left," said Pierre, drawing himself 
 up proudly in spite of his weakness. " Were you looking 
 for us ? " 
 
 "Yes, and for Jean too," she added, in a lower tone. 
 
 " Jean ! What is Jean to you ? " and the wounded man 
 frowned. 
 
 "I love Jean still," said the young Vendean girl simply; 
 and then, as her brother was about to speak, she put her 
 hand quickly upon his mouth : " Hush he is dead ! " 
 
 Pierre raised his hand to the broad hat that covered 
 his wounded head. 
 
 " May God receive his soul ! " he said, solemnly. 
 
 Marthe had passed her arm through his. 
 
 " Come with me," she said, hurriedly ; " come he fa 
 down there. I found him ; and I wish to have him laid 
 in holy ground." And she dragged on her brother, whose 
 trembling limbs could hardly follow her.
 
 PIERRE'S ESCAPE. 121 
 
 He let her prostrate herself upon the grave, which the 
 peasants of the Aubiers had left open for their enemy 
 whilst he was called away by a summons from the 
 Superior Council. 
 
 When the town was taken, the Royalists had found 
 Pierre in a barn, where he was guarded by a Republican 
 volunteer. The poor Vendean had had the misfortune 
 to fall into the hands of a ferocious patriot, madly per- 
 suaded that the only means of re-establishing order in 
 France was to put all Royalists and priests to death, and 
 he would have been very glad to do his part of the work 
 by blowing out the brains of his prisoner. He had been 
 ill-treating him for a week, when the Vendeans again 
 attacked Fontenay. Whilst they were fighting at the 
 gates of the town, the peasant had dragged himself to 
 the window, and was trying to guess by the sounds which 
 side was victorious. 
 
 " If the town is taken, I shall kill you," the soldier kept 
 saying constantly ; but he was uneasy, and pushed the 
 wounded man away from the window, and came to it 
 himself. He had left his gun by the door : the prisoner 
 crawled on hands and knees to the weapon, and suddenly 
 seizing it, he supported himself against the wall. 
 
 " If you come near me, I shall kill you," he said to his 
 jailer ; and at that moment the Vendeans entered the 
 town, and rushed from house to house in search of their 
 captive comrades. 
 
 ' The men from St. Aubin were called for on all sides. 
 Pierre was alone, and his shouts were very weak; but
 
 122 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 they were heard, and he was carried off in triumph, whilst 
 his keeper was taken into custody. He was about to be 
 judged as guilty of cruelty to the wounded, when Pierre 
 appeared before the Superior Council. 
 
 " It was you who were in the hands of this wicked 
 man ? " said M. Desessait, who was President of the 
 Council. 
 
 "Yes," said Pierre, looking fixedly at his trembling 
 enemy. 
 
 " He ill-treated you ? " 
 
 " He is a patriot," said Pierre, simply, as if that word 
 explained everything. 
 
 " What accusation do you bring against him ? 
 
 " None ! " cried Pierre, eagerly. " I beg that he may be 
 set at liberty. We were at war, and I was his prisoner." 
 
 The members of the council looked at one another : 
 they loathed executions, and it was impossible to keep 
 prisoners. 
 
 " Cut off his hair, and let him go," said M. Desessait. 
 
 The patriot could not believe his ears : he looked at 
 Pierre in surprise. 
 
 " I am going to take him to the barber," said the 
 Vendean, eagerly; then, taking his arm, he added in a 
 low voice, " Remember that I have forgiven you for the 
 love of Jesus Christ." 
 
 The Republican had not quite forgotten the lessons of 
 his mother, and Pierre's sublime charity touched a dulled 
 chord in his heart. 
 
 " If I believed in God ! " he said to himself.
 
 LAST OF ST. AUBIN. 123 
 
 The generals had determined to attack Saumur ; and 
 Pierre, wishing to rejoin the army, went and presented 
 himself at the lodging occupied by M. de Lescure and 
 Henri de la Rochejacquelein. 
 
 " I am the only man left from St. Aubin, M. Henri," 
 he said. " I ought to be marching." 
 
 Henri looked at him, deeply touched. 
 
 "If you are all that are left," he said, with tears in his 
 eyes, " we must take care of you, for you don't look 
 strong yet. Go home to the Green Farm, and get Marthe 
 to nurse you." 
 
 " Marthe is here," said Pierre, gravely. 
 
 " And what becomes of the farm ?" said M. de Lescure. 
 
 " Rougeau is there, taking care of the cattle. Marthe 
 came here to look for us " (Pierre took good care not to 
 let out that his sister had been in love with a Republican), 
 " and if M. Henri wishes, I will go back with her." 
 
 " Go," said Henri, " and don't come back here till you 
 are quite well." 
 
 " The King will perhaps be on the throne before that," 
 muttered Pierre, with a discontented look. " However, 
 we could not have done more. Jacques has got himself 
 killed, and I have twenty-six wounds on my body." 
 
 He had great difficulty in getting Marthe away from 
 the grave which had just been closed. 
 
 " M. Henri told me to go back with you to the Green 
 Farm," Pierre said at length ; and the young girl obeyed 
 as she had done all her life. 
 
 The day after their return to the farm, Pierre and
 
 124 ?HE LOYALISTS. 
 
 Marthe sought in vain for the idiot He had done his 
 duty faithfully in their absence : the cattle had not 
 wanted fodder, and he had led the sheep to the pastures 
 brought the fowls into the poultry-yard at night. But 
 when he saw that Pierre was wounded and disabled from 
 active service, and understood across the clouds of his 
 feeble reason that Jacques had been killed, he put a bit 
 of bread in his pocket, fastened his Sunday shoes to the 
 end of a stick, and started for Fontenay, following the 
 peasants who were returning to the army. 
 
 He had just entered the town when he perceived 
 M. de la Rochejacquelein passing down the street on 
 horseback, and threw himself in front of him. 
 
 Henri stopped with an exclamation of anger. 
 
 " Pardon excuse me, M. Henri," said the poor boy. 
 " I wanted to tell you so that I was come." 
 
 " Rougeau ! " cried Henri ; " and what are you doing 
 here?" 
 
 " I am the soldier of the Green Farm," said the idiot, 
 laughing with all his might. "You must have a man; 
 and as you sent Pierre back, and let them kill Jacques, 
 I came." 
 
 M. Henri passed his hand across his eyes, and then 
 ordered two men from the Aubiers to take care of the 
 poor innocent
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SAUMUR. 
 
 [HEY were before Saumur, and the whole army 
 was re-assembled. At first the generals had 
 wished to disturb the Republicans by detach- 
 ments of cavalry, but the troops had followed in crowds 
 after the body intended for this purpose, shouting, " Long 
 live the King ! We are going to Saumur." And they 
 arrived altogether and in disorder before the place, so 
 that the generals were obliged to combine their opera- 
 tions as they galloped along. 
 
 Happily for the Vendeans, the disorder that reigned 
 in their army existed in the same degree in that of their 
 adversaries. The Convention had not as yet at all under- 
 stood the importance of the Vendean insurrection : be- 
 sides having at the same time to face so many enemies, 
 to improvise generals and armies, to defend the frontiers, 
 and to repel the foreigner, they had supposed the volun- 
 teers and the National Guard would have sufficed to re- 
 duce a few peasants, directed by men without experience 
 or resources. They were beginning to find out their mis- 
 take, and the taking of Fontenay was fated to open their 
 eyes to the importance of the Royalist movement in the
 
 126 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 west; but in the meantime Saumurwas left open by Gene- 
 ral Salomon, who had tried in vain to stop the Vendeans. 
 
 Generals Menon, Santerre, and Coustard gathered 
 their forces hastily together ; but the soldiers, who were 
 already talking about treason and saying the town had 
 been sold to the Royalists, themselves prepared their own 
 defeat. At the first volley M. de Lescure had been 
 wounded, but had tied his handkerchief round his arm 
 and gone on charging. The peasants, frightened by the 
 sight of his blood, had dispersed, but he called them 
 back to the assault, seconded by M. de Marigny, who 
 commanded the artillery. Meantime M. de la Rochejac- 
 quelein had attacked the Republican camp in the meadow 
 of Varm, and, throwing his hat over the entrenchments, 
 he cried, "Who will go and fetch it for me ?" He him- 
 self was the first to leap, but by his side rushed forward 
 Rougeau, from whom he had not been able to shake 
 himself free all day. The idiot seized the hat, which he 
 brought back to Henri in triumph. The example was 
 given. " We can't be behind Rougeau," cried the pea- 
 sants , and they all cleared the entrenchments after him. 
 At the same moment M. de Bauge brought up his troops 
 on the other side of the camp, and the Vendeans fired 
 upon each other for some instants without recognizing 
 one another. The two leaders had joined company ; they 
 pursued the Republicans without looking to see whether 
 their men were following or not. Galloping through the 
 streets of Saumur, they saw a battalion, which took fright 
 at their approach, and retired into the castle. 
 
 The road was strewn with guns, which went off under
 
 ROUGE AITS EXPLOITS 127 
 
 tne norses' feet. All at once Henri turned sharply, for 
 a man had just jumped upon the crupper of his horse. 
 
 " Forgive me, M. Henri," said the idiot, laughing, " but 
 when gun-shots come out of the earth it is better to be 
 on horseback." 
 
 Henry laughed, and galloped on. They were opposite 
 the playhouse, and looking through the great bridge of 
 the Loire, blocked up with fugitives of the Republican 
 army. The two officers stopped and, dismounting, began 
 to fire upon the enemy, Rougeau loading their guns, or 
 sometimes saving himself the trouble by picking up the 
 loaded firearms scattered on the ground. No one turned 
 back upon these two men who were firing all alone upon 
 a whole army. A dragoon came up and fired upon them 
 with the muzzle of his gun quite close to them, but his 
 hand trembling with rage, he missed, and a shot from 
 M. de la Rochejacquelein struck him down. 
 
 The people in the castle had seen, and began to fire 
 upon them. M. de Bauge was struck by the rebound of 
 a ball, and fell down bruised. Henri took him up in his 
 arms to put him on his horse again. 
 
 "Wait, M. Henri," cried the idiot. "I am going to 
 help you." And he seized M. de Bauge by the leg, 
 intending to lift him up. 
 
 "Quiet, you stupid!" said Henri, who had succeeded 
 in replacing his friend in the saddle. 
 
 Some peasants began to gather round them, and the 
 two officers crossed the bridge, now clear of fugitives, 
 and followed them some way on the road to Tours, the 
 cannon o the castle and redoubts sounding all the time.
 
 128 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " We must go and see if our friends have entered the 
 town," M. de la Rochejacquelein said suddenly. And he 
 turned his horse's head to re-enter Saumur, breaking 
 down the bridges behind him, to prevent the Blues from 
 returning. Night had fallen, and they were obliged to 
 defer the attack upon the redoubts until next day. 
 
 All the leaders were assembled in Saumur, but Henri 
 was silent and thoughtful whilst they were counting up 
 the triumphs of the day and the happy results of the 
 victory. M. de Lescure came up to his cousin, and 
 touched his shoulder gently. 
 
 " You are very pensive," he said, laughing. " As if you 
 had not taken Saumur with three men, and an idiot for 
 the second!" 
 
 Henri raised his head. " I was thinking of our success," 
 he said. " It astounds me. All comes from God." 
 
 " True," said M. de Lescure, wringing his hand. " He 
 fights for us, and it is to Him that we must ascribe our 
 victories." 
 
 And they both went to the church, whither the pea- 
 sants had repaired in crowds for the evening service. 
 
 M. de Lescure could hardly keep up : his wound was 
 very painful. 
 
 " Go and rest at La Boulaye, whilst we are at the pin- 
 nacle of our glory," Henri said to him, as they came out 
 of church. 
 
 " I shall come back for our defeats," said M. de Les- 
 cure, seized, he knew not why, by deep depression. 
 
 And he started next morning.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE ADVANCE TO NANTES. 
 
 had heard of the success at Saumur at 
 La Boulaye, but M. de Lescure had not 
 written word that he was wounded, and his 
 wife did not expect him in the moment of victory. She 
 was anxious to have her daughter brought within her 
 reach, and set out to meet the child. The roads were so 
 bad that she was forced to ride. She was timid by 
 nature, and her short sight increased her alarms, so that 
 she had begged that her riding-horse might be led. 
 
 She was dining with the doctor of her family at La 
 Pomeraye-sur-Sevre when a letter was brought her from 
 her husband, who had reached La Boulaye some hours 
 after her departure, and who wished at once to set her 
 mind at rest himself. She got up, trembling and shiver- 
 ing in all her limbs. 
 
 "You are ill, madame," said the doctor, coming 
 towards her. 
 
 "No; but I am going. My husband is wounded." 
 And her teeth chattered. 
 
 " Wait ; I am going to order my horse." And M. 
 
 Durand called his servant. 
 
 D
 
 1 30 THE LOYALISTS, 
 
 "No; I see one in the court. 11 
 
 "But are you not afraid ?" 
 
 "Very little now." And without allowing time to 
 alter the stirrups, and without any one's help, she jumped 
 upon the saddle of a wretched little horse which hap- 
 pened to be at the door, and setting off at a gallop, dis- 
 appeared in an instant, shouting out to M. Durand, 
 " Follow me as soon as ever you can." 
 
 The good doctor had ordered his horse. 
 
 " I shall have to dress M. le Marquis's wound," he said 
 to himself, "and probably to mend Madame la Mar- 
 quise's arms and legs ; but it was impossible to stop her." 
 
 When, in his turn, M. Durand reached La Boulaye, he 
 found M. de Lescure up, though very feverish, and his 
 wife quite proud of her equestrian exploit. 
 
 " Never again in my life shall I be afraid of riding, M. 
 Durand," she said. "I could not possibly ride faster, 
 over worse roads, or on a worse horse." 
 
 And her husband laughed as he remembered her past 
 terrors, and how much encouragement she used formerly 
 to need to induce her to go a few steps on the quietest of 
 horses, between two people who held the bridle. 
 
 " There is nothing like being very anxious to arrive," 
 she said, in reply to his jokes ; " one does not think about 
 the means." 
 
 Whilst M. de Lescure was recovering from his wound, 
 the Vendean army had set out on the march for Nantes. 
 It was not very numerous, and very spiritless. The soldiers 
 were going a long way from home, and a great number of
 
 A DEFEAT. 13 ! 
 
 peasants refused to leave the neighbourhood of their own 
 parishes. M. de la Rochejacquelein had, much against 
 his will, been left in charge of the guard of Saumur. 
 They were acting in concert with M. de Charette and 
 M. de Lyrot, who had risen in Lower Poitou, and who had 
 the closest interest in taking Nantes, whence proceeded 
 all the expeditions that were directed against them. The 
 boldest of the generals had proposed to march at once 
 on Paris, but the chiefs of the peasants shook their 
 heads ; they knew they should never get so far from 
 home with this labouring population, who had risen for 
 the defence of the soil and of religion, but who were 
 ignorant, timid, attached to place as much as to family, 
 and to whom Paris was an unknown region from which 
 all woe and trouble came. The expedition to Nantes 
 proved that they were not mistaken : the ill-arranged 
 attacks were desultory, although sustained with great 
 courage. Cathelineau was mortally wounded, and the 
 chiefs who had made the greatest efforts to give a start 
 to their soldiers had only encountered terrible dangers in 
 vain. The day after, the 3Oth of June, the Vendeans had 
 disappeared, the peasants having recrossed the Loire in 
 boats, before the Republicans, who were still exhausted 
 by the heat of the attack, had thought of pursuing them. 
 General de Cambeaux, who commanded the garrison of 
 the place, had few troops, and was too wise to waste them 
 In useless engagements. 
 
 The news of this defeat reached La Boitlaye at the 
 
 same time as that of the evacuation of Saumur. M. de la 
 
 92
 
 132 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 Rochejacquelein had seen the garrison gradually dimi- 
 nishing, and had at last found himself at the head of 
 only eight men, to hold in subjection a town with a 
 numerous hostile population. He went through the 
 streets of the town shouting " Long live the King ! " to 
 make believe that there were considerable numbers to 
 patrol, but at last he was forced to quit the place, as three 
 thousand Republicans had occupied Chinon, and were 
 about to march upon Saumur. Henri had no difficulty 
 in withdrawing his small garrison, and took two cannon 
 with him, but at Thouars he was forced to throw them 
 into the river. 
 
 M. de Lescure was not fully recovered when these 
 grievous tidings arrived at La Boulaye, and at the same 
 time he heard that some Republican detachments were 
 bearing down upon Amaillion and Parthenay. 
 
 " I am going there," he said to his wife. " We cannot 
 allow these posts to be taken from us." 
 
 " But your wound is still painful, sir ! " exclaimed 
 Madame Boguet, who chanced to be in the drawing-room 
 when this news was brought. 
 
 " What does that matter ? " he said, and began his 
 preparations. 
 
 " I am going with you," said his wife : " I cannot let 
 you go alone." 
 
 " What good would you be, my dear ?" he said, smiling 
 with gentle irony. 
 
 " I would dress your arm," she said. " For my own 
 satisfaction and comfort let me come."
 
 FOREBODINGS. 1 3 3 
 
 Celeste said nothing. Since the day when M. de Marigny 
 had sent her back to La Boulaye, she had never gone far 
 away from the castle. Her excitement seemed wearing 
 her out, and she had grown pale and thin, but she put 
 forward no more wild projects. She did not even ask 
 Madame de Lescure to let her go with her. 
 
 " Here is a child who is dying to be my aide-de-camp," 
 said Madame de Lescure to her husband in a low voice. 
 
 " Oh, as to that, I say ' No ' decidedly," he said quickly. 
 " It is all very well for you ; but for a young girl, it is 
 impossible 1 " 
 
 Madame de Lescure smiled. She had never told her 
 husband that Celeste was the young officer who had led 
 the peasants to the assault on Marie Jeanne. She set oft 
 accordingly for Amaillion with her husband ; but Par- 
 thenay was threatened, and it was important to effect 
 a junction with other bodies of troops. M. de Lescure 
 wished to go there at once. 
 
 " Go and wait for me at Clisson," he said to his wife ; 
 " I will come and join you there." 
 
 " My poor Clisson ! " she said. " I quite thought I 
 should never see it again." 
 
 Her husband stooped down to her. 
 
 " If you could dismantle it a little whilst you are there," 
 he said in her ear, "it would be prudent ; for, judging by 
 the route Westerman is taking, he will soon be in these 
 parts, and the track of fire which he leaves behind him 
 will certainly extend to Clisson." 
 
 " Burn Clisson ! " she cried in horror. " Burn the home
 
 134 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 to which you brought me after our marriage ! " And she 
 burst into tears. 
 
 "Did you not expect it ?" said her husband, gently. 
 " On my part, I knew when we began that I was sacri- 
 ficing everything my property my peace of mind 
 my life ! Property and peace are already given up : the 
 rest will come in turn." 
 
 He had lowered his voice, and his wife did not hear 
 him. 
 
 " It is to-morrow, is it not ? " she said. " If you de- 
 layed, I would warn my mother. Madame Boguet could 
 very well stay at La Boulaye." 
 
 " I have undertaken to protect her and her children," 
 said M. de Lescure, gravely, "and wherever you are in 
 safety, she must be with you. 
 
 " But you would not let me bring Celeste," she per- 
 sisted. 
 
 " Because you were not in safety," he said ; and he 
 hurried her away. 
 
 The young wife was tired. She had slept like a child 
 in the room where she had formerly passed such happy 
 days, and she did not wake readily. She was looking 
 round her, finding sweet and sad memories associated 
 with every table, piece of furniture, or ornament, when 
 she was startled from her reverie by the sound of a horse 
 galloping into the court, and almost directly after, some 
 one was shouting at the door of her room. 
 
 " Madame ! " cried a man's voice : " in the name oi
 
 A FLIGHT. 135 
 
 M. de Lescure, escape ! We have been beaten at Fon- 
 tenay escape ! " 
 
 She jumped out of bed trembling. 
 
 " My husband ? " she said, in a stifled voice. 
 
 " Nothing is the matter with him. He sent me to tell 
 you to escape." 
 
 She was bewildered with terror, as was also the mes- 
 senger, who fancied himself pursued. Dressing herself 
 in all possible haste, she forgot to fasten her clothes, 
 Agathe not being with her ; and she rushed out into the 
 court, herself calling to all the people who yet remained 
 at Clisson. A group of mowers chanced to be there, 
 ready to start for the fields. 
 
 " This is no time for work !" cried Madame de Lescure. 
 "You must go and fight turn the handles of your 
 scythes the wrong way ! " And seizing the arm of an old 
 mason of eighty, who had just arrived to do his day's 
 work, " Take me to the Grands Genets," she said : " I have 
 forgotten the way ; " and she dragged on the old man, 
 who could not keep pace with her. 
 
 She was running on in this way, holding together her 
 disordered garments, when a groom succeeded in catching 
 her up. 
 
 " Madame," he said, " that foolish Auguste took fright, 
 but M. le Marquis has retreated in safety. Madame will 
 have plenty of time to join him \ there is no need for her 
 to go and hide herself at the Grands Genets." 
 
 She stopped her reason was beginning to return. 
 
 " You are sure ? " she said.
 
 1 36 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " Quite sure. I am going to saddle your horse, 
 madame. Do you wish me to come with you ? " 
 
 Yes," she said, "and let Auguste come too. He shall 
 not go about spreading the alarm he has caused me ! " 
 And she set off for Chatillon, where she expected to find 
 her husband ; but he was not there, and the idea there 
 was that he and his wife had both been taken prisoners. 
 
 "There she is ! " was shouted when Madame de Les- 
 cure was seen galloping into the courtyard. She was 
 still too much agitated for them to be able to stop her ; 
 she went to the Superior Council, and told what she had 
 heard ; then remounting her horse, she started on the 
 road to La Boulaye, still at a gallop, with her two 
 servants after her. 
 
 " There is the coach ! " suddenly exclaimed Auguste. 
 
 "My husband is wounded ! " cried Madame de Lescure, 
 pressing her horse forward. 
 
 "No, madame; it is Madame de Donissan," said the 
 men-servants. 
 
 The young woman had reached the carriage door. 
 
 " My child ! " and the mother raised herself on her 
 Cushions, and held out her arms to her. " I thought you 
 were taken," she said, "and I was going to Niort, where 
 you were said to be, to die upon the scaffold with you. 
 Where do you come from ? How did you run away ? " 
 
 " I came from Clisson : I have not run away," said 
 Madame de Lescure, kissing her mother's hands. " My 
 husband sent me a warning, and I behaved like a mad 
 woman. I wanted to hide myself at the Grands Genets
 
 
 THE FALL OF CLISSON. 137 
 
 with old Father Moreau, and had not taken time to dress 
 myself ; " and she laughed. 
 
 Madame de Donissan had sunk back upon the cushions, 
 and could hardly breathe. 
 
 " I have suffered so much," she saicl. 
 
 " That is how it is with you and me," said her daughter, 
 rather sadly. "You are always brave and firm in the 
 moment of danger, and you pay for it afterwards. I am 
 frightened and lose my senses, but it does me no harm ; 
 and as soon as it is over, I forget it all." 
 
 " You are not as old as I am," said Madame de 
 Donissan, softly, passing her hand caressingly over her 
 daughter's unpowdered locks. 
 
 They both returned together to La Boulaye, where 
 Madame Boguet had been nearly dying of terror whilst 
 awaiting their return ; and it had been necessary to hold 
 back Celeste forcibly, to prevent her starting for Niort 
 with Madame de Donissan. 
 
 General Westerman was steadily advancing. 
 
 " I have not been able to have anything removed from 
 Clisson," M. de Lescure said. " The peasants would have 
 taken fright and deserted the farms. My wife might have 
 carried away a few things the other day, but she got into 
 such a state of terror, that she is still running away ! " 
 and he smiled. 
 
 He had sacrificed his castle. It was time. Wester- 
 man advanced cautiously to attack the den of the brigand 
 chief; he had sent detachments to take possession of the
 
 138 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 surrounding country, and himself only advanced at nine 
 o'clock at night. 
 
 Some peasants lying in ambush in the garden thickets 
 discharged their firearms, which made the Republicans 
 very uneasy ; but Clisson did not contain a single person 
 in a condition to offer resistance. They only arrested a 
 few women and some children, and the General entered 
 in triumph this great castle, completely furnished, and 
 still breathing the simple and liberal elegance which 
 characterized its owners. 
 
 " They did not at all expect the soldiers of the Re- 
 public here," said the officer, throwing his hat upon 
 Madame de Lescure's sofa. " The brigands would never 
 have left us all their satin furniture ; " and seating himself 
 at a table, he wrote to tell the Convention of this great 
 triumph, sending with his letter the portrait and will of 
 M. de Lescure, which he had found in a writing-table. 
 
 Then they brought faggots and straw into the midst 
 of the house that had sheltered so many widows and 
 orphans, fed so many poor, comforted so much misery, 
 and set fire to it. 
 
 The flames reached the granaries and barn attached 
 to the castle, and destroyed the stores of corn and hay, 
 destined for the sustenance of the neighbouring parishes. 
 The peasants had placed a part of their harvest there. 
 
 " There will be requisitions," said Westerman, seeing 
 that his officers grudged the destruction of the pro- 
 visions ; and he left the ruins of Clisson to march upon 
 Bressuire.
 
 THE COURIERS. 139 
 
 The news of the march of the Republicans, and the 
 burning of M. de Lescure's castle, reached Chatillon just 
 as his wife had arrived to dine with him. She silently 
 wiped away a tear, but her husband's face did not change. 
 
 " We must repulse Westerman. He is coming upon us," 
 said the chiefs, who had been hastily assembled. " The 
 soldiers who had come back from Nantes have dispersed ; 
 the others are at home, and do not choose to march. 
 They only think of putting their wives and children and 
 cattle in safety, whilst the enemy is burning and murder- 
 ing on all sides they have no will for it. But in spite of 
 that, we absolutely must march." And the generals sent 
 orders to the different parishes to come at once. 
 
 " If this continues, we shall be obliged ourselves to go 
 as couriers," said M. Desessait, looking up. " There is no 
 one left to send." 
 
 " My wife will undertake the parishes on the other side 
 of La Boulaye," said M. de Lescure ; and he gave her 
 orders without any further explanation. 
 
 She set off at a gallop, and crossing the castle garden, 
 called to Celeste, who was walking sadly on the terrace, 
 
 " Tell my mother that I am going to carry some of the 
 requisitions of the Council. To the Treize- Vents," she 
 added, and rode on. 
 
 She had reached the space round the church, and was 
 having the tocsin rung to call the population of Treize- 
 Vents together, when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and 
 started on recognizing Celeste in her male attire. 
 
 The young girl coloured.
 
 146 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 " I thought I might be able to help you if you have 
 many requisitions," she said ; " and it is easier this way," 
 she added, touching the button of her coat. 
 
 " Go to Mallievre," said Madame de Lescure, smiling. 
 "There is the order which I am to give to the parish." 
 
 Celeste made a sign of assent, sprang on horseback, 
 and was off again. 
 
 " What a young officer ! " they said at Mallievre when 
 she arrived ; but the peasants were hardly assembled on 
 the Place when the child exclaimed 
 
 " Friends ! the Blues are marching upon Chatillon ! 
 Behind them they have not left a house standing, or a 
 crop that is not destroyed. You must repel them at once, 
 if you would not see your country ravaged, your wives 
 prisoners, and your children carried away. You will pro- 
 tect them much better by marching against the enemy, 
 than by getting yourselves killed in their defence. The 
 leaders expect you at Chatillon to-morrow. Surely you 
 will not fail to answer their call, who have let their castles 
 be burnt to protect your cottages ! " 
 
 " Long live the King ! " shouted all the peasants. 
 
 " Not a man failed from Mallievre," said M. de Lescure 
 to his wife, when he saw her again a few days later. 
 " You must have been very eloquent there." 
 
 " I sent an express there," said Madame de Lescure, 
 quietly. 
 
 " There was need to send the same everywhere," mur- 
 mured her husband, with his head on his hands, and lost 
 in most bitter thoughts.
 
 DISGUISED. 141 
 
 Chatillon was lost. Westerman had taken possession 
 of it, although without committing any excess. Madame 
 de Lescure had been so seized with alarm at La Boulaye, 
 that when she heard the growl of the approaching cannon, 
 she had rushed out of the castle, and, passing the ford of 
 the Sevre, had run into that same parish of Mallievre, of 
 which all the men were fighting at the Moulin au Chevres. 
 
 "Give me your oldest and most ragged clothes," she 
 had said, running hastily into a cottage ; and without 
 taking time to look at the rags which they brought her, 
 she muffled herself up in them in a great hurry. Still 
 running, she took the road towards Les Herbiers. Ma- 
 dame de Donissan and Madame Boguet had started 
 more calmly on the same journey, with the three young 
 girls walking a few steps behind them. 
 
 Madame de Donissan kept stopping and looking back. 
 
 " I don't understand what has become of my daughter," 
 she said. "When she is frightened she does not know 
 what she is doing." 
 
 A peasant woman came running up behind her. Celeste 
 stopped. " There is Madame de Lescure," she said. 
 
 Her sisters laughed at her, but she walked up to the 
 ragged woman. 
 
 " How you have frightened us !" she said, reproachfully. 
 
 "What would you have?" said the young woman, in 
 a low voice, bending down to kiss Celeste. "My esca- 
 pades are not such courageous ones as yours. I get 
 frightened and run away ; but I come back again," she 
 added with a smile^ as she advanced toward^ her mother, 
 who was laughing at her, although at the same time he*
 
 I 4 2 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 recent alarm had been so great that she could hardly 
 stand. Madame Boguet was shedding hot tears. Her 
 daughter Marie passed her arm through hers. 
 
 "Come, mamma," she said in a low voice, "there is no 
 harm done ; don't make yourself miserable. Madame 
 de Lescure looks like a scarecrow." 
 
 "And here is M. de Concise coming to meet us!" ex- 
 claimed the subject of these lamentations. " I am sure 
 he will not know me." And she burst out laughing. 
 
 Her merriment betrayed her. M. de Concise looked 
 at her for a moment in surprise, and then he laughed too. 
 
 " My daughter was frightened, and disguised herself, 
 as you see," said Madame de Donissan. "Will not 
 Madame de Concise be scandalized at her?" 
 
 He smiled rather awkwardly, and on entering the castle 
 the fugitives found Madame de Concise oji a sofa, wearing 
 rouge and suffering from a nervous attack, either real or 
 imaginary. She overcame it, however, to welcome her 
 guests, who found M. Donissan there, just returned from 
 Nantes. 
 
 " Might I offer you " timidly said the mistress of 
 
 the house, looking at the tattered garments of Madame 
 de Lescure, who was a person of considerable importance 
 amongst the Vendeans. 
 
 "A dress ?" said the youthful lady, laughing. "Yours 
 would be very long for me; but they would be better 
 than my present jacket." And she consented to take off 
 her rags, which they were obliged to throw into the fire. 
 " I should not dare to make a present of them to any 
 one," she said, laughing.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. .>'- 
 
 CHEQUERED FORTUNE. 
 
 [HE war continued with mixed success. Cha- 
 tillon was retaken, and two or three successful 
 engagements had restored the courage of the 
 peasantry, but a thirst for vengeance was now to be per- 
 ceived amongst them which they had not shown at first. 
 Though quite ready to sacrifice their own lives, they 
 had not foreseen in their unthinking ardour that the 
 insurrection would involve the ruin of their families, the 
 destruction of their cottages, and the ravage of the whole 
 country. The prisoners were no longer safe in their 
 hands. After a fight at Vitrers, M. de Lescure had com- 
 manded two or three hundred to be shut up until any one 
 should have time to shave their heads, as had hitherto 
 been done, so that it might be possible to recognize those 
 who had promised not to bear arms against the Royalists. 
 Instead of this, however, the peasants, exasperated by the 
 burning of the villages, fell on the unfortunate wretches 
 and began to kill them ; M. de Marigny being at their 
 head. 
 
 Celeste Boguet was behind with her mother and sisters, 
 they being on their way back to La Boulaye. She sprang
 
 [44 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 on horseback, and calling to her mother, " I hear cries 
 they are killing the prisoners ! " she disappeared like a 
 flash of lightning before the somewhat tardy perceptions 
 of her mother could take in what was become of her. 
 
 M. de Lescure was riding on, in no anxiety, in the centre 
 of a party of officers, when a cloud of dust arose in the 
 horizon, and the overwearied horse of Celeste rolled over 
 at the General's feet. The young girl freed herself at once. 
 
 "They are killing the prisoners, sir ! " she said, panting ; 
 " so I came to fetch you." 
 
 Despite his anger and haste, M. de Lescure looked at 
 the little messenger in surprise. Her disordered light 
 hair, the sparkle of her eyes, and the ringing sound of 
 her voice recalled to him, though he knew not why, the 
 little officer who had followed him at the storming of 
 Thouars. He made them give her another horse, and 
 then both started off at a gallop without exchanging a 
 single word. 
 
 " Marigny was not there, then ? " M. de Lescure said 
 at last, as if speaking to himself; but Celeste heard him. 
 
 " He was there, sir," she said ; and she added in her 
 own heart, " It was just because of that that I came to 
 seek you. I was not going to let him disgrace himself." 
 
 They were approaching Chatillon. M. de Lescure 
 spurred his horse and crossed the entrenchments without 
 wasting any time in having the gates opened to him. 
 M. de Marigny had seen him and advanced towards him. 
 
 " Go away ! " he cried, beside himself, " whilst I kill 
 these monsters. They burnt your eastle ! "
 
 M. DE LESCURE^ S REVENGE. 145 
 
 " Stop this instant ! " said M. de Lescure, in such a 
 commanding tone that his cousin was sobered at once, 
 " or else I shall be forced to defend the wretches against 
 you." Then he added sadly, and as if oppressed with a 
 prophetic feeling, " You are too cruel, Marigny ; you will 
 perish by the sword." 
 
 The prisoners crowded round her deliverer, but Celeste 
 had disappeared. When she returned to La Boulaye that 
 evening, no one could learn the particulars of what had 
 passed from her, for she burst into tears as soon as it was 
 mentioned to her. Only at night she said to Marie, when 
 the light was out, and they were in bed, 
 
 " Never fear, Marie ! M. de Marigny will not be cruel 
 again, and he will not perish as M. de Lescure said." 
 
 Her sister could get no further explanation. 
 
 An attack upon Lugon was meditated. M. d'Elbee 
 had been named Commander-in-Chief in the place of 
 Cathelineau, who had just died, after lingering for some 
 weeks ; and they thought an effort necessary to raise the 
 courage of the soldiers. La Vendee was attacked on all 
 sides by numerous generals brave and resolute, but 
 jealous and suspicious of each other, and irritated against 
 the representatives of the people whom the Convention 
 set over them, though they understood no more of war 
 than they did of administration. 
 
 They often triumphed in single battles, despite the bad 
 quality of the troops which they commanded, and the 
 want of resources that frequently hindered their motions ; 
 
 but for want of combined action and able guidance, they 
 
 10
 
 146 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 had not succeeded in making their way into the Bocage, 
 properly so called. The war was carried on all round it ; 
 but this tract of land, with its deep roads, great hedges, 
 and little pasture-fields bordered by trees, was still in the 
 hands of the insurgents, as the peasants fought with a will 
 near home, to keep the enemy away from their own fire- 
 sides but the scene was about to change. 
 
 It became impossible for the leaders to encamp longer 
 in a devastated region, which had become the refuge of 
 poor wretches chased by the enemy from the surround- 
 ing country ; and, besides, the truly terrible enemy was 
 coming. The Royalists were no longer to find themselves 
 face to face with discontented and undisciplined volun- 
 teers, who deserted if they were dissatisfied. .The true 
 Republican soldiers had set forth for La Vendee. 
 
 The French garrison of Mayence, under the orders ol 
 Kleber, which had spent thirty-two days in open trenches, 
 had obtained the most honourable terms from their 
 enemies ; and it was these upon whom the Convention 
 called to subdue the insurrection in the west, transport- 
 ing them post-haste to the seat of war with their leader, 
 who had received the title of General of Brigade) " which 
 was at that time," as he wrote in his memoirs, " a brevet 
 to march to the scaffold, or what was still worse to 
 languish in prison, with a sword hanging over one's head." 
 
 It was with these sinister previsions that he started for 
 La Vendee, where ill success had already cast disgrace 
 and death on so many Republican generals. 
 
 The Vendeans had just been repulsed from Lu^on after
 
 A RALLY. 147 
 
 a serious defeat, and a few successful minor combats were 
 not sufficient to retrieve their misfortunes. The Mayen- 
 gais had arrived. M. de Charette, who had been the first 
 whom they met on their way, had been unable to stop 
 them ; he had drawn back before them, and they advanced 
 as far as Torfou. The Vendeans were all re-assembled 
 once more. The Royalist army numbered 40,000, and 
 all the leaders felt they must conquer or die. 
 
 The parishes had risen like one man. That of the 
 Echaubroignes alone sent 1,700 men, who rallied round 
 M. de Lescure. Behind the hedges and under the shelter 
 of the trees which covered the ground between Clisson 
 and Torfou, there were 3,000 brave men, and at their 
 head Pierre Goureau, only that morning returned from 
 St. Aubin with Marthe, who would not leave him, and 
 who still meditated joining herself to the Filles de la 
 Sagesse. 
 
 A considerable number of women followed the army 
 now ; there were sick and wounded often too far from 
 their homes to be able to be taken there, and the women 
 tended them without pay and almost without any other 
 resource than the charity of the farms or the officers. 
 
 Marthe was hardly arrived before two women from the 
 Aubiers came in search of her. Children encumbered 
 the march, and they asked her to take care of some of 
 them at some distance behind the army. The generals 
 dare no longer send back the women to their own fire- 
 sides for fear of massacres, such as were committed daily 
 
 in lonely cottages. 
 
 7 10-2
 
 148 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 Marthe gave up her scheme for starting that evening 
 for Chatillon, where the Sisters were just then established. 
 
 " There seems to be work to do here," she said to Ma- 
 dame de Lescure, whom her husband was sending back 
 to Beaupreau, where Madame de Donissan -lay sick. 
 
 " I wish I could help you," said the young wife, with 
 tears in her eyes. " But, Marthe," she added, " how could 
 you let Pierre come back ? He is not fit to stand." 
 
 " He says he is strong enough to be killed," Marthe 
 answered in a low voice, " and that is what will happen 
 to him certainly. I saw him three nights ago, pale and 
 bloody, with a ball in his heart. But he will not listen 
 to me ; he says he shall be glad to have done." 
 
 " I must go," said Madame de Lescure, quickly. " You 
 grieve me too much. I can no longer hope for victory." 
 And she turned her horse. 
 
 The battle had just joined. The first motion of the 
 Vendeans, when they found themselves facing the for- 
 midable Mayence troops, had been one of terror : a great 
 number had taken flight ; but when called back to the 
 field of battle by the officers, protected by their know- 
 ledge of the country, and by the nature of the soil, they 
 attacked with fury, although at first without being able to 
 conquer the resistance of the Republicans, who fell back 
 slowly, but in good order, in spite of very serious losses, 
 the Vendeans following them all the time, and the dis- 
 charge of musketry blazing forth every minute in the 
 hollow roads, without the Blues being able to reply to 
 invisible enemies. At length they reached a little bridge,
 
 THE BRIDGE. 149 
 
 which must be crossed. Kleber turned towards a lieu- 
 tenant-colonel, who was righting near him. 
 
 " Occupy the bridge with two pieces of cannon as soon 
 as the troops shall have passed," he said to him, " and 
 get yourself killed there with your battalion." 
 
 "Yes, General," said the brave soldier, obeying. 
 
 The pursuit was stopped, and the retreat of the Repub- 
 licans was effected without further difficulty. A success- 
 ful fight near Montaigne hindered General Beysier from 
 effecting his junction with the Mayengais, and they left 
 off molesting the Vendeans in their retreat. These were 
 beginning to grow bolder, and no longer took fright at 
 the first shock. They had been joined by a few Swiss, 
 who had escaped from the massacre of the loth of 
 August, and one of them, at the head of a Vendean bat- 
 talion, followed the retreating Mayenpais, playing the 
 flageolet whilst at full gallop. A bullet carried off the 
 head of his horse, but the Swiss got up again, and con- 
 tinued his tune. Unfortunately, however, all this courage 
 was rendered useless by the want of concert and direc- 
 tion. M. de Bonchamp had attacked the convoy of the 
 Mayencais, who were marching upon Clisson. Three 
 times did he return to the charge with heroic ardour, but 
 the troops were scattered ; they were fighting everywhere 
 at once, and even good strokes had no effect, except 
 causing the temporary retreat of an indefatigable enemy, 
 which was always ready to return to the charge.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 DISASTER. 
 
 ||N spite of the uneasiness of the leaders, who 
 saw their small territory surrounded by six 
 armies, and who no longer expected the succour 
 of which England had at one time held out hopes, the 
 peasants still rejoicing in their last victories, had returned 
 in high spirits to their own firesides j and the Te Dcuiu 
 was chanted in all the parishes. 
 
 Pierre Goureau had not returned to St. Aubin. 
 
 " There is no one at home now," he said to M. de la 
 Rochejacquelein, "since Marthe is here. They may 
 perhaps burn the farm as they have burnt Durbelliere. 
 We have no longer anything belonging to us in the world, 
 and if it pleases God we shall not be here long. If the 
 land were but disencumbered of the Blues before the 
 good God calls for my soul, I have no other wish." 
 
 Henri smiled sadly. 
 
 " What is Marthe about ? " he asked. 
 
 Pierre's eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " Marthe is on the straight road to Paradise," he said. 
 " Since she has been here, as the good sisters were not
 
 THE WORK OF MExCY. i$I 
 
 enough to take care of the sick, she begged for a barn 
 belonging to the district, and she has established the 
 wounded there, and herself takes care of them night and 
 day; and M. Henri does not know who helps her and 
 does almost as much work as she does the little lady 
 with the light hair, who was in prison with Madame la 
 Marquise. Her mother often comes too, but to judge by 
 what Marthe says, she is too tender-hearted. When the 
 wounded complain she begins to cry, whilst my sister and 
 the little lady are comforting them and getting them back 
 into bed as if they were children, without being over- 
 powered by their lamentations." 
 
 It was true. The wounded heart of Marthe and the 
 ardent soul of Celeste had met, and united in a work that 
 became daily more necessary. In the midst of the 
 sufferings, which were always on the increase, the need 
 for self-devotion had carried them away with an irre- 
 sistible force. Marthe had no leave to ask of any one. 
 Celeste had at first entreated and supplicated, and at last 
 brought her mother into the midst of the confused crowd 
 of women, children, sick and wounded, who were dragged 
 in the rear of the army, without any one having time 
 to attend to them. All Madame Boguet's resistance 
 vanished at once. 
 
 " Go and do what you can," she said to her daughter ; 
 and Celeste availed herself of the permission to devote 
 to the work all her time and strength and soul. She had 
 no longer any wish to go to battle ; she had given her 
 male attire to some boys whom she had met in rags ;
 
 152 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 and her generous ardour, now fully satisfied, spread so 
 gentle a serenity over her person, that Madame Boguet 
 and her elder daughters were often surprised at her 
 transformation. " She is an angel," said her mother, 
 wiping her eyes. 
 
 The Generals were discussing their new plans of cam- 
 paign : they were sad and uneasy. M. de Charette, who 
 considered himself slighted in the division of the spoil, 
 had retired into his former cantonments in Lower Poitou, 
 taking with him a considerable part of the army, and no 
 one now had enough troops to attack the enemy. They 
 only thought of holding their positions ; but every day 
 the circle was closing in. 
 
 M. de Lescure no longer considered Chatillon a safe 
 enough place for his wife, and desired her to move to 
 Chollet. Madame de Donissan, who was getting better, 
 had only just been moved from Beaupreau with great 
 difficulty. 
 
 "How shall you be able to bear another move, mother ?" 
 sighed Madame de Lescure. 
 
 The sick woman called her to her side. " Don't make 
 yourself uneasy. I shall ride." 
 
 " But can you ride, mother ? " asked the young woman, 
 in surprise. 
 
 " It is twenty years since I did so," she said, smiling 
 feebly ; " but I can sit as well as you did a year ago." 
 
 It was necessary to yield the point : there was nothing 
 else to be done. Madame de Lescure had been forced 
 to take back her little daughter of nine months old, a*
 
 THE HOSPITAL.* 153 
 
 grief and anxiety had dried up her nurse's milk, and 
 Agathe was holding her in her arms. 
 
 "I must go and warn Celeste at the hospital," said 
 Madame de Lescure. 
 
 But as she spoke Madame Boguet entered, her eyes 
 swelled with weeping, but with a resolute manner which 
 was not common to her. 
 
 "I am come to wish you good bye," she said, but 
 tears stopped her words. 
 
 Marie, who was with her, advanced to Madame de 
 Donissan's easy chair. 
 
 " Celeste cannot leave the wounded," she said, simply, 
 " and we cannot leave Celeste." 
 
 Madame de Lescure looked at them both in bewilder- 
 ment. " And if Westerman enters this place to-morrow ?" 
 
 "We shall all die together," said Madame Boguet, 
 firmly. And they urged her no more. 
 
 Madame de Lescure knew that it had been debated 
 whether the wounded should be removed ; but they had 
 decided with great grief that it could not be done, as it 
 would have complicated the march, already so difficult. 
 The Filles de la Sagesse had retired upon Chollet some 
 days ago, so that Marthe and Celeste were alone in charge 
 of the hospital. 
 
 " We will help them," said Madame Boguet ; and the 
 friends took an affectionate and tearful farewell of one 
 another, without doing anything to turn each other away 
 from the path of duty. 
 
 Madame de Lsscure must obey her husband, and tend
 
 154 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 her mother and child, and Madame Boguet stayed with 
 her daughters, protecting to the utmost with her maternal 
 tenderness her whom God had called to a great devotion, 
 and who had answered unreservedly to His call. 
 
 It was night. Madame de Lescure's little band had 
 just left the town ; a thick fog enveloped the country, 
 and rain was falling. Standing at the door of her little 
 hospital, Celeste listened to the departing footsteps of 
 the horses, then she came back into the room with wet 
 eyes. Her mother looked at her anxiously. 
 
 " There is still time if you wished," she murmured. 
 
 " For you, my mother," said Celeste, gently ; " for me 
 it is time for the evening dressing of the wounds." 
 
 The Republicans approached the town ; they attacked 
 the Moulin au Chevres, where M. de Lescure had taken 
 up his station with his troops. The Blues were numerous 
 and well commanded, so that the Vendeans were soon 
 crushed. M. de Lescure took Henri de la Rochejacquelein 
 by the arm. 
 
 " Let us draw them after us," he said to him in a low 
 voice. And, passing in front of the hussars, who were 
 sabring the peasants, he shouted, " Marquis de Lescure ! " 
 
 " Henri de la Rochejacquelein ! " replied the other im- 
 mediately. And they galloped off, followed by a few 
 officers. The soldiers pursued them, and allowed the 
 poor peasants to escape. These spread in all directions, 
 carrying terror into the town, which they entered in great 
 numbers. Some ran to the hospital. 
 
 " The Blues are after us ! " they criecj,
 
 CELESTE'S HEROISM. 155 
 
 Marthe and Celeste had come forward at the cries, and 
 at once shut the door of their barn. 
 
 " If they come to look for us, all well and good," they 
 said ; " but order shall reign here up to the last moment." 
 And they refused to admit the fugitives. " We are at the 
 service of the wounded," they said; "but people who 
 are well have legs to carry them farther off." 
 
 The Republicans had entered the town, but it was late; 
 they had been fighting all day long and were very tired. 
 They spread themselves into the houses and taverns, 
 asking for food and drink. Several times people came 
 and shook the latch of the great door of the hospital ; 
 but it was closed, and no one took the trouble to force it 
 open. All night long they heard the sound of the de- 
 tachments returning, after having sacked and burnt the 
 houses of the Aubiers and St. Aubin, and the surround- 
 ing parishes ; the cries of drunken soldiers announcing 
 to the women shut into the hospital and to the wounded 
 oppressed by fever, the fate of their own homes the 
 loss of all that was left them in the world. Marthe, who 
 was kneeling by a dying man, seemed to hear nothing. 
 Celeste shuddered in silence ; and every time they came 
 beating at the door, she drew nearer her mother, who 
 was standing pale but calm, for her maternal tenderness 
 had given her an unknown strength. She had pushed 
 her daughters behind her, and was standing close to the 
 door. If they had entered, they must have passed over 
 her body before they could have touched her children. 
 
 ftj. de Lescure had drawn back upon Chollet. Just as
 
 156 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 he and Henri were about to be taken, they had both risen 
 upon their horses, and leapt over the hedge. The hussars, 
 who had followed them through the hollow roads, knew 
 not how to do the same; so they had escaped, and reached 
 Ch611et in the course of the night Madame de Lescure 
 had just arrived there. She had established her mother 
 and daughter in a hospitable house, and gone out in 
 search of news, when a peasant threw himself before her, 
 holding out a flag which he was carrying. 
 
 " Here is the flag you gave me," he said, in a hollow 
 voice. " I had great difficulty in bringing it away yester- 
 day from the Moulin au Chevres, but I defended myself 
 against the Blues with the staff of it. See ! " and he 
 showed her the large notches that marked the wood. 
 
 " Then we have been defeated ? " she said, leaning 
 against the wall. 
 
 " Yes, most surely ; and we should all be dead now if 
 M. le Marquis had not charged the Blues, with M. Henri, 
 shouting their names. They turned after them, and we 
 were able to save ourselves." 
 
 Madame de Lescure could hear no more. She went 
 indoors almost fainting. The sound of some horses re- 
 called her to herself and she saw her husband accom- 
 panied by his cousin. She threw herself into his arms in 
 the street. 
 
 " What that peasant told me made a widow of me," 
 she said ; " but there are still some happy moments ia 
 life ! " She was enjoying the last of them.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE HOSPITAL. 
 
 (HATILLON had been retaken by the Ven- 
 deans, and they durst breathe once more at 
 the hospital. Celeste had opened its doors 
 with that unconquerable cheerfulness which formed the 
 root of her character, and which diverted the thoughts 
 of her sick people in the midst of their sufferings. 
 
 " Friends may come in," she said. 
 
 M. de Lescure had come to see her. He had always 
 had a liking for Celeste, who amused him, and he was 
 full of admiration for the devotion and courage of which 
 she had given proof. Marthe was cleverer than she was 
 in the mechanical matters of taking care of the wounded ; 
 but the direction of the little hospital, as well as the 
 moral energy which saved the poor peasants from lying 
 desponding in their beds, belonged entirely to Celeste. 
 Her mother had undertaken the charge of the kitchen. 
 
 " I am of some use in that way," she said, humbly. 
 
 " You are of use every way," said Celeste, with one of 
 her bursts of tenderness. " What would have become of 
 us if you had left us ? "
 
 153 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 "Mothers don't leave their children," said Madame 
 Boguet; and she returned to her saucepan. 
 
 It was late : the town was deserted, the Vendeans having 
 gone out to fight. The report of a victory had already 
 reached the hospital, and the sentinels had left their post, 
 when a cry arose of " The enemy ! " 
 
 " We are lost ! " cried the wounded. 
 
 Marthe had already shut the door of the barn. A 
 hundred grenadiers, mounted behind a hundred hussars, 
 had entered the place at full gallop, pursued by the 
 Vendeans, who had defeated Westerman's division. 
 
 At the head of this bold detachment, who had resolved 
 to try a coup de main on a place which had been left de- 
 fenceless, was M. Fromental, aide-de-camp to General 
 Kleber. He had had the gates of the town closed im- 
 mediately, but the mounted peasants having entered 
 headlong with the Republicans, they were re-opened, 
 and they contested every foot of ground in the streets. 
 A small body had rallied opposite the hospital, and some 
 hussars, drunk with wine and anger, came and hammered 
 at the closed door, which did not open at their knocks. 
 
 The Vendeans had drunk too. They fought bravely, 
 but they did not perceive the necessity of defending the 
 hospital. The Blues proceeded to break in the door, and 
 it was yielding to their strokes, when a Royalist officer 
 whose brother was wounded rushed through the little 
 group of Blues, and placed himself before the door. He 
 made his sword play round his head, and he drove back 
 the assailants for an instant, but a blow from a beam
 
 ANOTHER ATTACK. 159 
 
 made him stagger the door broke, and burst open 
 behind him. He made but one bound into the interior, 
 seized his convalescent brother in his arms, rolled him 
 up in a counterpane, and disappeared, canying off the 
 wounded man on his horse. The Republicans had rushed 
 into the room, furious at the resistance they had met 
 with, and murdered the defenceless sufferers in their 
 beds. The women who tended them, being unable to 
 protect them, had taken refuge in a corner. Madame 
 Boguet had pushed the young girls behind her, and was 
 covering them with her body. All at once at the 
 moment when the Blues were trying to open an inner 
 door to find more victims farther on, Celeste escaped 
 from her mother's arms, and ran to the broken door. 
 
 " They are murdering the wounded !" she shouted with 
 a ringing voice. " Is there no officer to protect them ? " 
 
 She had named no one. She had appealed neither to 
 Republicans nor to gentlemen all she wanted was a 
 leader to recall erring men to their duty. 
 
 M. Fromental ran up on hearing a strange voice, and 
 started back in astonishment at seeing under the arch of 
 the broken doorway on the blood-stained threshold so 
 young and frail a child, with her long light hair flying 
 wildly about calling for help, not for herself, but for the 
 sufferers to whom she had given herself up. The young 
 officer had fought at Mayence ; he was brave and upright, 
 and the war he had been forced to wage since he had been 
 in La Vendee horrified him. He entered the barn with 
 a single spring, and rushed to his soldiers. He had not
 
 160 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 stopped to reassure Celeste, but she had seen compassion 
 in his face. Alas ! it was too late to protect the wounded. 
 Those even who had not received a mortal blow were 
 gasping in their beds, dying of fear and agitation. The 
 room was streaming with blood. Marthe was supporting 
 in her arms a peasant from the Echaubroignes, who had 
 been wounded at Torfou, and who was delirious. 
 
 " I see them ! " he shouted. " They are more numerous 
 than we are, but we are behind the hedges they don't 
 know these deep roads. Oh, the kind big trees ! I am 
 going to hide under the holly ; they will not come to 
 look for me there, and I '11 fire fire upon the Blues ! " 
 
 A furious hussar aimed a dagger-stroke at the poor 
 fellow in the midst of his imaginary triumph, but M. Fro- 
 mental made his comrades stop him. He had gathered 
 his men together, and led them away. The tumult di- 
 minished in the town, the Republican officers giving way 
 little by little before enemies more numerous and as fierce 
 as themselves. The butchers of the wounded came out 
 of the hospital, but the young officer returned for another 
 look at Celeste. She had thrown herself on her knees by 
 a dying man, and thought no more of him, but he carried 
 away in his heart the picture he had seen on the threshold 
 of the old barn a child protecting the wounded. 
 
 Calm and silence returned to the streets. The Ven- 
 deans had followed their enemies. Celeste had closed 
 the eyes of the sick man whom she had been supporting, 
 and approached several beds. All whom she touched 
 were dead, pierced by fresh wounds, and she came back
 
 THE MASSACRE. 161 
 
 to the side of Marthe, who was softly singing a vesper 
 psalm to calm the excitement of the combatant of Torfou. 
 Suddenly he threw his arms over his head. 
 
 " They are drawing back ! " he cried : " we are vic- 
 torious ! Oh, the flageolet of the good Swiss ! " And he 
 let himself fall back heavily upon his pillow. 
 
 Marthe gently closed his eyes, and remained for an 
 instant in prayer ; then rising, " It is over ! " she said. 
 And she looked around her with deep grief. 
 
 " Over here, through man's wickedness," said Celeste ; 
 " but never fear," and she smiled bitterly ; " they have 
 prepared work for us elsewhere. We shall find wounded 
 to tend at Chollet, at Beaupreau, wherever we will, and 
 sick are not wanting." And she stood in the midst of 
 the room, looking at the corpses, upon whom she had 
 lavished her cares, whom she had seen with such joy 
 return gradually to life, yet whom cruel hands had struck 
 down in their weakness. " The savages !" she said, under 
 her breath. Madame Boguet said nothing. She had 
 not stirred, and her two elder daughters were still behind 
 her, trembling and frozen by the danger they had so 
 narrowly escaped. The mother made one step towards 
 Celeste, as if to cover her under her wing. She stretche 
 out her hand towards her, and her daughter saw wi 
 surprise that she was holding a pistol. 
 
 "Where did you get that, mother?" she said. 
 
 " One of the hussars dropped it," said the mother, in 
 a hollow voice. " I should have blown out the brains o f 
 
 the first who had come near you." 
 
 li
 
 1 62 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 Celeste shuddered, and kneeling down, she spent the 
 whole night in prayer. 
 
 When the Vendeans re-entered the town in the morn- 
 ing, the scene was frightful. The streets were strewn with 
 dead and dying, the houses which had been fired were 
 still burning, and the open spaces were strewn with ruins. 
 No sight was more heartrending than that of the hospital ; 
 but amidst blood and murder, order and courage reigned 
 in that little refuge, so peaceful the night before, now 
 desolate. The dead were decently covered ; all traces ot 
 blood had disappeared, and when M. de Lescure crossed 
 the broken threshold, he was filled with admiration for 
 the courageous women who had not left their post, and 
 who had accomplished to the full the duties confided to 
 them. 
 
 "You must start for Beaupreau as soon as possible," 
 he said to them. " You will find wounded to tend there, 
 and there is no more work here." And he passed his- 
 eyes sadly over the silent, motionless inmates of the little' 
 beds. He arranged an escort, placed it at Madame' 
 Boguet's disposal, and went out. Marthe followed him 1 
 with her eyes with a strange fixed look. 
 
 " I saw death written in his eyes," she murmured, " as 
 I have done in Pierre's for the last week." And, lost in- 
 her sad thoughts, she left Celeste to perform the few re- 
 maining cares necessary before their departure. The 
 Vendeans had promised to bury the dead before leaving 
 the town. 
 
 The five women had just taken the road for Beaupreau
 
 M. DE LESCUR&S WOUND. 163 
 
 with their escort, when M. de Lescure, who was to effect 
 a movement upon Chollet, which was believed to be 
 threatened by the Republicans, met a first detachment 
 half-way to Montagne. He had heard the steps of the 
 horses, and, mounting on a rising ground with a young 
 officer, he saw the enemy's outpost 
 
 "Forward, my friends!" he shouted. At the same 
 moment a ball struck him above the left eyebrow and 
 came out behind the ear. He fell senseless, and the 
 peasants who followed him passed over his body without 
 seeing it, and drove back the Blues. Pierre Goureau, 
 however, had seen his General fall, and threw himself on 
 the ground beside him, exclaiming, "He is dead!" A 
 second ball came and struck him, and he fell by the side 
 of M. de Lescure. " The last man from St. Aubin ! " he 
 said as he died. 
 
 The balls rained round them, and the peasants crowded 
 around M. de Lescure, who was bathed in blood, but still 
 living. His servant was there, who placed him in front of 
 him on his horse, two peasants walking on foot by his 
 side, to support the wounded man, and slowly passing 
 through the flying troops and their pursuers, they brought 
 him as far as Beaupreau. The consternation was general ; 
 no one asked whether they were conquerors or conquered, 
 they only knew that M. de Lescure was dying. 
 
 Madame de Lescure had left Beaupreau by her hus- 
 band's orders, and had slept at Trementine. She was at 
 the church in the morning; the women were praying 
 there in crowds, whilst they listened to the cannon from 
 
 112
 
 1 64 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 the direction of Chollet. The fugitives were beginning 
 to flow into the town, when an officer appeared in the 
 crowd. He came up to Madame de Lescure, weeping, 
 and took her hands. She looked at him in surprise. He 
 saw she knew nothing. 
 
 " The battle is lost," he said, in a choking voice. 
 
 "Do you know where M. de Lescure is?" she asked, 
 earnestly. 
 
 " At Beaupreau, I think. You would do well to return 
 there. The hussars may enter here any minute. Coward 
 that I am ! " he said, as he came out of church, " I had 
 not courage to tell her of her misfortune." 
 
 Madame de Lescure had taken a horse at once. She 
 pressed her child in her arms. 
 
 " Let us go," she said to her mother, who was not yet 
 in the saddle before her daughter, who was bewildered 
 by terror, dashed forward. 
 
 They were shouting out in the crowd, " There are the 
 Blues ! We shall be defeated !" She grew terrified, and 
 put her horse to a gallop, clasping the child to her heart. 
 As the road was crowded with carriages and carts, she 
 made her horse leap the ditch, and rode through the 
 fields, so as to get to the head of the column. She was 
 breathless when her mother at length succeeded in catch- 
 ing her up ; but they did not know the cross-roads, and 
 were always losing their way, so that when night came 
 they were a long way from Beaupreau, and were obliged 
 to throw themselves on beds in a room full of soldiers, 
 who were on their way to join M. de Bonchamp's army.
 
 ALMOST DEAD. 165 
 
 It was still night when they were awoke by the roar of 
 cannon. They heard it from two points from St. Flo- 
 rent and along the Loire. Mass was about to be cele- 
 brated for the soldiers, who were just going, and Madame 
 de Lescure went to it. The church was full ; the cannon 
 thundered at intervals in the midst of the cure's dis- 
 course ; and the feeble glimmer of the lamps and candles 
 hardly lit the building. With death at her heart, Madame 
 de Lescure remained on her knees. The service was over. 
 They had told the cure that M. de Lescure was dead, 
 and that he must prepare his wife for the news. 
 
 He came to her, and she wished to confess. The priest 
 gave her an exhortation, speaking of the reverses of the 
 Vendeans, the holiness of their cause, and the recompense 
 that awaited them. He spoke of the faith and piety of 
 M. de Lescure, and dwelt upon the devotion and submis- 
 sion that God would exact from the wife to whom He 
 had given such a husband. The voice of the priest echoed 
 through the empty church. She listened, frozen with 
 horror, and almc.st without understanding. They put her 
 on horseback, but she could hardly support herself. Her 
 mother rejoined her, and they continued their flight, 
 without knowing where they were going. 
 
 At some distance from the village they had left, a priest 
 who accompanied them was accosted by two peasants. 
 
 " M. de Lescure is wounded, but he is not dead," they 
 said in a low voice. 
 
 Madame de Lescure turned. She had heard. 
 
 " Dead ! " she exclaimed ; " did they think him dead ?
 
 1 66 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 And they told me nothing about it ! " Then, without 
 waiting for an answer, she pressed on her horse in the 
 direction of Chaudron. 
 
 Her mother with great difficulty followed her with 
 Agathe, who had taken the child, and they arrived as 
 Madame de Lescure, dismounting, entered her husband's 
 room. His head was shattered, his features were altered 
 by suffering, and he could hardly speak, but he was him- 
 self. He was alive, and had found her again when he 
 had believed her to be in the hands of the Republicans, 
 and they both thanked God in this terrible moment that 
 they had still a hope of dying together. 
 
 It was necessary to make a last effort. M. de Bon- 
 champ, who had just arrived, pressed the generals to 
 seize upon the little town of Varades, on the right bank 
 of the Loire, so as to be able to cross the river in case of 
 defeat. He knew Brittany, and thought that they might 
 act usefully on the other side of the Loire; but he had not 
 calculated the numerous difficulties an army of peasants, 
 without provisions or discipline, would encounter, far from 
 the hearths they were protecting, and encumbered by 
 women and children, whom they could not leave to the 
 enemy in a defenceless country. 
 
 Nevertheless, his counsel was followed. A detachment 
 of 4,000 men marched upon Varades, whilst the Vendean 
 army was attacking Chollet. All the corps were together, 
 numbering 40,000 fighting men, and the Republican 
 force was about equal. It was a terrible battle. 
 
 Both M. d'Elbee and M. de Bonchamp were mortally
 
 THE WRECK. 
 
 [6; 
 
 wounded, and they were fighting around them without 
 giving ground, when the reserve force of the MayenQais 
 came upon the exhausted Vendeans, and the rout was 
 complete. Some fled to Beaupreau, whither M. d'Elbee 
 had been carried, others towards St. Florent, to which 
 they had taken M. de Bonchamp. The Republicans had 
 suffered greatly, and drew back upon Chollet ; and the 
 sad wreck of the grand Vendean army prepared to cross 
 the Loire to seek on the other side the succour and rein- 
 forcements that were promised them.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE PASSAGE C F THE LOIRE. 
 
 |ADAME DE BOGUET and her daughters 
 had hardly reached Beaupreau before they 
 heard the news of the defeat, and the entrance 
 of the Republicans into the town followed almost im- 
 mediately. Once more they must take to flight, and 
 retire upon St. Florent, where report said that M. de 
 Lescure lay dead, and M. de Bonchamp dying. The 
 fugitives had also met M. d'Elbee carried in a litter. 
 
 A peasant, who had fought by the side of M. de Les- 
 cure, chanced to meet Marthe in the street. 
 
 " Pierre has fallen by the side of M. le Marquis," he 
 said, abruptly. " He said, ' The last man from St. Aubin ! ' 
 and died. If this lasts, I shall have to say the same 
 about those from Echaubroigne and we were seventeen 
 hundred ! " And he passed on. 
 
 Marthe did not weep. " I knew it," she murmured. 
 
 Celeste sprang to her, and threw her arms round her. 
 
 " You have a sister left," she said, softly. 
 
 "And it will not last long," continued the young Ven- 
 dean, with great wide-opened eyes, and as if speaking to 
 herself.
 
 7 HE RIVER. 169 
 
 Celeste shuddered : Marthe's visions always frightened 
 her. They moved on to St. Florent. The heights upon 
 which the town stood stretched in a semicircle along 
 the edge of the Loire, leaving a vast plain at their feet ; 
 and the wide river rolled its yellowish waves before a 
 dense mass of people who, crowded and bewildered, 
 jostled and pressed upon one another on its brink. 
 
 Women, children, old men, wounded all fled from fire 
 and murder. Every cottage, every village was deserted, 
 and in the distance the smoke that rose behind the low 
 hills, showed what fate had befallen the homes they 
 had left. Cries, deep groans, and the sound of weeping 
 were heard on all sides ; women were calling for their 
 husbands, children seeking their fathers. The strongest 
 seized upon the boats, of which there were but a few, and 
 tried at once to put their families into them, as though 
 safety had awaited them upon the opposite shore, al- 
 though they possessed there neither allies nor resources. 
 
 Desperate and distracted, the generals tried in vain to 
 infuse some order into the ill-considered but irresistible 
 movement of a crowd bewildered by terror. 
 
 M. de la Rochejacquelein standing at a window by the 
 side of the bed, upon which M. de Lescure had just been 
 laid, wrung his cousin's hands, and exclaimed like a 
 madman that he would not cross the Loire that it was 
 better to be defeated and killed at home, than to go and 
 die amongst strangers. " I will rush upon the Blues, and 
 have my brains blown out," he repeated. 
 
 Madame de Lescure, who. had no thoughts save for her
 
 1 70 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 dying husband, tried to calm him ; but the sick man had 
 roused himself. " I, too, will die here," he said. 
 
 A tumult was heard at the doors. There were 5,000 
 Republican prisoners in St. Florent ; the Vendeans could 
 not possibly carry them with them to the other side of 
 the Loire. M. de Marigny, who had just entered his 
 cousin's room, exclaimed that they must be shot, and the 
 general voice was with him. 
 
 " How horrible ! " murmured M. de Lescure. But no 
 one heard the feeble voice save the wife who was bending 
 over him, and the order was given. 
 
 It was given ; but in another house, beside another 
 death-bed, the same tumult had reached ears that were 
 already growing deaf to earthly sounds. M. de Bon- 
 champ raised himself upon his mattress. 
 
 " I command that their lives should be spared," he said 
 with a feeble voice. " It is certainly the last order I 
 shall give : promise me that it shall be executed." 
 
 M. d'Autichamp, who was by his side, went out to obey 
 him. 
 
 "M. de Bonchamp commands that the prisoners be 
 pardoned ! " he said aloud, approaching the abbey where 
 the victims were confined. 
 
 Even in the midst of their sufferings, the hearts of the 
 Vendeans were capable of generosity, and the noble de- 
 sire of the General at once communicated it to the soldiers. 
 
 " Mercy ! mercy ! " cried the peasants. " Bonchamp 
 orders it ! " And the prisoners were saved. 
 
 The boats returned, having just completed their first
 
 THE CROSSING. 171 
 
 voyage, and ready for fresh passengers. Madame de 
 Lescure had had her husband carried on board, and was 
 standing by her father (whom she had once more found 
 amongst the group of officers) with her little daughter in 
 her arms. At the very moment when she was parted 
 from M. de Donissan, as the little boat left the shore, the 
 cry was heard of " The Blues ! the Blues are coming ! " 
 And the sailor who held the oars pulled from the bank. 
 The eyes of Madame de Lescure were fixed upon two 
 boats that were also crossing the river, one of which con- 
 tained Madame Boguet and her two elder daughters: 
 Marthe and Celeste were not in it. For one moment the 
 unhappy mother had hoped she might carry away with 
 her her youngest daughter. 
 
 " You will find wounded over there," she said. 
 " And these will die alone here, mother ! " 
 The possibility of abandoning them never occurred to 
 Celeste. She had already gathered together a number 
 of sick and dying who had been forsaken by their despe- 
 rate families, of children left forgotten upon the strand, 
 of wounded whom their friends had brought as far as 
 St. Florent, but whom no one had thought of conveying 
 to the boats. By dint of her entreaties, she had succeeded 
 in getting them established in a deserted house, and with 
 the help of Marthe she had herself carried more than one 
 sick person thither in her arms. Her mother gazed at her 
 in distress and despair. Louise had lost her senses, and 
 kept urging her mother to flee to the opposite coast. 
 " Why should we all die here ? " she said. And she
 
 1 72 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 succeeded in dragging her mother to the little boat, in 
 which Marie, calmer, but frightened like herself, had 
 already taken up her station. Celeste showed herself 
 for a moment at the window of her newly-formed hos- 
 pital. A firm smile played on her lips ; she made one 
 sign of farewell, and returned to her wounded. 
 
 Madame Boguet hid her face in her hands. 
 
 " I shall never see her again !" she murmured. 
 
 A cry of terror made her look up. Another boat, 
 guided, like theirs, by inexperienced hands, was close 
 beside them ; the two skiffs struck against each other, 
 and both overturned. Absorbed in its own woe and 
 anguish, the multitude that crowded the shore heard and 
 saw nothing, and the empty boats floated down the river. 
 M. de Marigny, who was crossing the waters on horse- 
 back, was the only person who perceived the disaster. He 
 turned his good steed to the place, plunging through the 
 water to rescue from death those who were struggling 
 there. He drew to him the body of Marie Boguet, who 
 had received a blow on the temple as she sank into the 
 water. He laid her on the neck of his horse, and suc- 
 ceeded in gaining the bank with his mournful burden. 
 
 " All my dreams of happiness are there," he said. 
 
 The Blues had entered St. Florent, pushing and press- 
 ing on the banks of the Loire the poor wretches who still 
 remained there. The little hospital that had but just 
 been established was already invaded. 
 
 Guided by a secret hope, M. Fromental hurried from 
 house to house, inquiring whether tljere was any place
 
 CELESTAS RESCUE. 173 
 
 where the wounded were gathered together ? Hearing a 
 tumult in a lonely house, he entered it. There stood 
 Celeste before an inner door, with arms outstretched and 
 a pistol in her hand, protecting with her own person the 
 sufferers whom she had gathered together. Marthe lay 
 dead at her feet. 
 
 The young girl uttered a cry of joy on recognizing the 
 Republican who had saved her at Chatillon. 
 
 " You here ! " she said. 
 
 The young man sprang to her side with gleaming eyes, 
 and his sword in his hand. " Cravens ! " he exclaimed, 
 "do you make war on women and dying men?" 
 
 The soldiers shrank back, and their officer, walking 
 forward upon them, repelled them little by little. When 
 he had closed the house door, he returned to Celeste, who 
 was still standing by the body of Marthe. " I will have 
 your sick people taken care of," he said. " Come." 
 
 " And her ? " asked Celeste, pointing to the corpse. 
 
 The young officer lifted the dead woman in his arms. 
 
 " Follow me," he repeated ; and his manner was short 
 and authoritative. Celeste made no further resistance. 
 She obeyed, and the Republican led the Vendean girl 
 to the lodging assigned to him. 
 
 " When she is buried," he said, pointing to Marthe, " I 
 will marry you. It is the only means of saving you." 
 
 His eyes sparkled with joy. 
 
 Celeste bowed down her head without a word ; but 
 she made no protest She had found a protector and a 
 master.
 
 174 THE LOYALISTS. 
 
 The war of La Vendee was at an end with the passage 
 of the Loire ; the combats that followed did but protract 
 its agonies. M. de Lescure only escaped to die in the 
 retreat from Laval. M. d'Elbee, who remained behind, 
 was obliged to be carried to execution in an arm-chair. 
 M. de Marigny, accused by Stofflet of treason, was shot 
 by his own soldiers, and his accuser at length, along with 
 M. de Charette, expiated his cruelty under Republican 
 bullets. Henri de la Rochejacquelein, the true hero of 
 La Vendee, the noble head of a revolution of peasants, 
 was destined to preserve his prestige to the end, and to 
 die amidst the woods and wastes of the country he had so 
 long defended, beneath the balls of two hostile dragoons. 
 
 They died nobly, but the work which they had under- 
 taken had failed. The little king whom they had wished 
 to replace upon the throne was sinking under odious ill- 
 treatment in an obscure prison ; the priests, whom they 
 upheld, were dispersed or in exile. All this courage and 
 devotion, this rare disinterestedness of great and small, 
 this intimate union of peasants and noblemen, perhaps 
 unique in history, all these had gained the Vendeans 
 nothing but their immortal renown ; but at least they 
 kept that glory which M. de Bonchamp durst not hope 
 even for them, since rarely was civil war inspired by 
 motives equally noble, or carried on by hands equally 
 pure. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 into Egypt and closes with the promulgation of the Two Tables of the Divine Law 
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 " If any man make religion as twelve and the world as thirteen, such a one hath 
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 t* Shakspeare's. (William) 
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