La Vendée

  CHAPTER I.

  SAUMUR.

  In the next three days the Vendeans bombarded the town, and during thattime fired against it everything they could cram into their cannons, inthe shape of warlike missiles; and they did not do so in vain, for thewalls, in portions, began to give way and to crumble into the moat,which ran round the town, and communicated with the river Loire on eachside of it. The town is built on the Loire, and between the Loire andthe Thoue. After passing over the latter river at the bridge ofFouchard, the road in a few yards came to the draw-bridge over the moat;and from the close vicinity of the two rivers, no difficulty was foundin keeping the moat supplied with water in the driest weather. About amile below the town, the Thoue runs into the Loire.

  Cathelineau found the men very impatient during the bombardment; theydid not now dream of going home till the work was over, and Saumurtaken; but they were very anxious to make a dash at the walls of thetown; they could not understand why they should not clamber into thecitadel, as they had done, over the green sods into the camp at Varin.On the fourth morning they were destined to have their wish. A temporarybridge over the Thoue had been made near Varin, over which a greatportion of the cannon had been taken to a point near the Loire, fromwhich the royalists had been able to do great damage to the walls; theyhad succeeded in making a complete breach of some yards, through whichan easy entrance might be made, were it not for the moat; much of therubbish from the walls had fallen into it, so as considerably to lessenthe breadth; but there was still about twenty feet of water to bepassed, and it was impossible, under the immediate guns of the castle,to contrive anything in the shape of a bridge.

  Notwithstanding the difficulties of the place, it was decided thatLarochejaquelin should take two hundred of his men and endeavour to makehis way through the water, and while he was doing this, de Lescure wasto force his passage over the bridge at Fouchard, and if possible, carrythe gate of the town; in doing this he would pass under the heights ofBournan, and to this point M. d'Elbee was to accompany him with thegreat bulk of the army, so as to secure his flank from any attack fromthe republican force, which still retained their position there, andwhich had hitherto kept up an intercourse with the town across thebridge of Fouchard.

  At five o'clock the greater portion of the army left the camp withd'Elbee and de Lescure. When they came within two furlongs of thebridge, the army separated, the chief body remaining with M. d'Elbee andthe remainder going on with M. de Lescure towards the town. The roadturns a little before it reaches the bridge over the Thoue, and up tothis point, the Vendeans, in their progress, were tolerably protectedfrom the guns of the town; but immediately they turned upon the bridge,they became exposed to a tremendous fire. The men at once perceived thisand hesitated to cross the river; two of the foremost of their men fellas they put their feet upon the bridge.

  De Lescure had marched from the camp at the head of his men. FatherJerome was on his right hand, and Stofflet and Adolphe Denot at hisleft. Henri had asked his friend to accompany him in the attack whichhe was to make near the river, but Adolphe had excused himself, allegingthat he had a great dislike to the water, and that he would inpreference accompany Charles de Lescure. Henri had not thought muchabout it, and certainly had imputed no blame to his friend, as therewould be full as much scope for gallantry with his cousin as withhimself. When de Lescure saw that his men hesitated, he said, "Come mymen, forward with 'Marie Jeanne,' we will soon pick their locks forthem," and rushed on the bridge alone; seeing that no one followed himhe returned, and said to Denot:

  "We must shew them an example, Adolphe; we will run to the other sideof the bridge and return; after that, they will follow us."

  De Lescure did not in the least doubt the courage of his friend, andagain ran on to the bridge. Stofflet and Father Jerome immediatelyfollowed him, but Adolphe Denot did not stir. He was armed with a heavysabre, and when de Lescure spoke to him, he raised his arm as thoughattempting to follow him, but the effort was too much for him, his wholebody shook, his face turned crimson, and he remained standing where hewas. As soon as de Lescure found that Adolphe did not follow him, heimmediately came back, and taking him by the arm, shook him slightly,and whispered in his ear:

  "Adolphe, what ails you? remember yourself, this is not the time to beasleep," but still Denot did not follow him; he again raised his arm,he put out his foot to spring forward, but he found he could not do it;he slunk back, and leant against the wall at the corner of the bridge,as though he were fainting.

  De Lescure could not wait a moment longer. He would have risked anythingbut his own reputation to save that of his friend; but his bravecompanions were still on the bridge, and there he returned for the thirdtime; his cap was shot away, his boot was cut, his clothes were piercedin different places, but still he was not himself wounded.

  "See, my friends," said he aloud to the men behind him, "the blues donot know how to fire," and he pointed to his shoulder, from which, ashe spoke, a ball had cut the epaulette.

  He then crossed completely over the bridge, together with Stofflet andthe priest; the people with one tremendous rush followed him, andAdolphe Denot was carried along with the crowd.

  As soon as they found themselves immediately beneath the walls of thetown, they were not exposed to so murderous a fire as they had been onthe bridge itself, but still the work was hot enough. 'Marie Jeanne' hadbeen carried across with them, and was soon brought into play; they hadstill enough ammunition left to enable their favourite to show herpuissance in battering against the chief gates of Saumur. The men madevarious attempts to get into the town, but they were not successful,though the gates were shattered to pieces, and the passage was almostfree; the republican troops within were too strong, and their firing toohot. At last the blues made a sortie from the town, and drove theVendeans back towards the bridge; M. de Lescure still kept his place inthe front, and was endeavouring to encourage his men to recover theirposition, when a ball struck his arm and broke it, and he fell with hisknee upon the ground. As soon as the peasants saw him fall, and foundthat he was wounded, they wanted to take him in their arms, and carryhim at once back across the bridge, but he would not allow them.

  "What ails you, friends?" said he; "did you never never see a manstumble before? Come, the passage is free; now at length we will quenchour thirst in Saumur," and taking his sword in his left hand, he againattempted to make good his ground.

  M. d'Elbee had seen the Vendeans retreating back towards the bridge, andknowing that victory with them must be now or never (for it would havebeen impossible to have induced the peasants to remain longer from theirhomes, had they been repulsed), he determined to quit his post and tosecond de Lescure at the bridge. The firing from the town had ceased,for the republicans and royalists were so mixed together, that the menon the walls would have been as likely to kill their friends as theirenemies; and as the first company, fatigued, discouraged andoverpowered, were beginning to give way, d'Elbee, with about twothousand men, pushed across the bridge, and the whole mass of thecontending forces, blues and Vendeans together, were hurried backthrough the gateway into the town; and de Lescure, as he entered it,found that it was already in the hands of his own party--the white flagwas at that moment rising above the tricolour on the ramparts.

  Adolphe Denot was one of the first of the Vendeans who entered the townthrough the gate. This shewed no great merit in him, for, as has beensaid, the men who had made the first attack, and the republicans whoopposed it, were carried into the town by the impulse of the men behindthem; but still he had endeavoured to do what he could to efface theineffable disgrace which he felt must now attach to him in the opinionof M. de Lescure. As they were making their way up the principal street,still striking down the republicans wherever they continued to makeresistance, but more often giving quarter, and promising protection, deLescure with a pistol held by the barrel in his left hand, and with hisright arm hastily tied up in the red handkerchief taken from a peasant'sneck, said to the man who was next to him,
but whom he did not at themoment perceive to be Denot:

  "Look at Larochejaquelin, the gallant fellow; look at the red scarf onthe castle wall. I could swear to him among a thousand."

  "Yes," said Adolphe, unwilling not to reply when spoken to, and yetashamed to speak to de Lescure, "yes, that is Henri. I wish I were withhim."

  "Oh, that is you, is it?" said de Lescure, just turning to look at him,and then hurrying away. But before he had moved on five paces, hereturned, and putting his pistol into his girdle, gave Adolphe his lefthand, and whispered to him:

  "No one shall ever hear of it, Adolphe," said he, "and I will forget it.Think of your Saviour in such moments, Adolphe, and your heart will notfail you again."

  The tears came into Denot's eyes as de Lescure left him. He felt thathe must be despised; he felt grateful for the promise which had beengiven him, and yet he felt a kind of hatred for the man to whom he hadafforded an opportunity of forgiving him. He felt that he never couldlike de Lescure again, never be happy in his company; he knew that deLescure would religiously keep his word, that he would never mention tohuman being that horrid passage at the bridge; but he knew also that itcould never be forgotten. Adolphe Denot was not absolutely a coward; hehad not bragged that he would do anything which he knew it was contraryto his nature to do, when he told Agatha that he would be the first toplace the white flag on the citadel of Saumur: he felt then all theaspirations of a brave man; he felt a desire even to hurry into thethick of the battle; but he had not the assured, sustained courage tosupport him in the moment of extreme danger. As de Lescure said, hisheart failed him.

  We must now return to Henri Larochejaquelin. He had taken with him twohundred of the best men from the parishes of St. Aubin, St. Laud andEchanbroignes; four or five officers accompanied him, among whom was ayoung lad, just fourteen years of age; his name was Arthur Mondyon, andhe was a cadet from a noble family in Poitou; in the army he had atfirst been always called Le Petit Chevalier. His family had allemigrated, and he had been left at school in Paris; but on the breakingout of the wars he had run away from school, had forged himself a falsepassport into La Vendee, and declared his determination of fighting forhis King. De Lescure had tried much to persuade him to stay at Clisson,but in vain; he had afterwards been attached to a garrison that was keptin the town of Chatillon, as he would then be in comparative safety; butthe little Chevalier had a will of his own; he would not remain withinwalls while fighting was going on, and he had insisted on accompanyingLarochejaquelin to Saumur. He was now installed as Henri's aide-de-camp.

  Jacques Chapeau also accompanied the party who were to make their wayinto the town through the water. The men were all armed with muskets andbayonets, but their muskets were not loaded, nor did they carry anypowder with them; it would have been useless in the attack they wereabout to make, and was much wanted elsewhere.

  Henri was at his post about the time at which de Lescure was preparingto cross the bridge at Fouchard. It was an awful looking place at whichha had to make his entrance there was certainly a considerable breachin the wall, and the fragments of it had fallen into the fosse, so asto lessen its width; but, nevertheless, there was full twenty feet ofrunning water to cross, which had more the appearance of a branch of theriver Loire, than of a moat round a town.

  Henri saw that his men looked a little alarmed at what they had to gothrough; he had a light straw hat on his head, and taking it off, hethrew it into the water, a little above the point he had to pass, andas the running water carried it down he said:

  "Whoever gives me that on the other side will be my friend for life."And as he spoke he himself leapt into the water, and swam across.

  Jacques made a plunge for the hat: had it been in the middle of theLoire he would have gone after it under similar circumstances, thoughhe couldn't swim a stroke; he did not go near the hat however, but wenthead over heels into the water; the impetus carried him through, and hewas the second to scramble upon the broken mortar on the other side. TheChevalier was more active; he leapt in and seized the hat as it wasgoing down the stream, and swimming like a young duck, brought it backto its owner.

  "Ah! Chevalier," said Henri, reproaching him playfully, and helping himup out of the water, "you have robbed some poor fellow of a chance; you,you know, cannot be more my friend, than you already are."

  The men quickly followed: they all got a ducking; some few lost theirarms, one or two were slightly wounded by their comrades, but none ofthem were drowned. Henri soon made his way over the ruins into the town,and carried everything before him. The greater part of the garrison ofthe town were endeavouring to repulse the attack made by de Lescure;others had retired into the castle, in which the republican Generalthought that he might still hold out against the Vendeans. Many werealready escaping out of the town by the bridge over the Loire, andthrowing down their arms, were hurrying along the road to Tours.

  It was in this manner, and almost without opposition, thatLarochejaquelin found himself, together with his brave followers, in themiddle of Saumur; their own success astonished them; hardly a shot wasfired at them in their passage; they went through the town withoutlosing a man; the republican soldiers whom they did see threw down theirarms and fled; the very sight of the Vendeans in the centre of the townoverwhelmed them with panic. The appearance of Henri's troop was verysingular; every man wore round his neck and round his waist a red cottonhandkerchief; this costume had been adopted to preserve Larochejaquelinfrom the especial danger of being made the butt of republican marksmen.There was now no especial mouchoir rouge among them. They certainly hada frightful appearance, as they hurried through the streets with theirbayonets fixed, dripping with mud and water, and conspicuous with theirred necks and red waists; at least so thought the republicans, for theyoffered very little opposition to them.

  Henri had just time to see that his friends had entered the town by thegate on the Doue road, but he did not wait to speak to them. Therepublican soldiers were escaping from the town in the oppositedirection, and he could not resist the temptation of following them. Hewas at the head of his men, just passing over the Loire by a woodenbridge, called the bridge of the Green Cross, and having possessedhimself of a sword in his passage through the town, was making good useof it, when a dragoon turned suddenly round, and fired a pistol almostin his face: near as the man was to him, in his hurry he missed him, andthe bullet merely grazed Henri's cheek, without even raising the skin."Ah, bungler," said Henri, raising his sword, "you are no good foreither King or nation," and he struck the unfortunate man dead at hisfeet.

  Not only the soldiers, but the inhabitants of the town were escaping byhundreds over the bridge, and Henri saw that if he pursued them farther,he must, sooner or later, find himself surrounded and overpowered bynumbers; he returned, therefore, and destroyed the bridge, so as toprevent the return of the soldiers who had fled in their first panic,and also to prevent any more of the inhabitants from leaving theirhomes.

  "God has certainly fought on our side today," said he to one of hisMends: "with barely two hundred men, all dripping like drowned rats, wehave made our way, almost without opposition, through the town, andthousands of soldiers are even yet flying before us."

  "Ah! M. Henri," said the little Chevalier, "it is a great honour tofight for one's King; one fears nothing then: a single royalist shouldalways drive before him ten republicans."

  Henri now returned and joined de Lescure, who was in possession of thetown, though the citadel was still in the hands of General Quetineau,who held the command of the garrison. It was not till the cousins hadembraced each other, that Henri saw that de Lescure was wounded.

  "Yes," said de Lescure, "I have at length acquired the privilege ofshedding my blood in the cause; but it is only a broken arm; Victorinewill have a little trouble with me when I return to Clisson."

  "And Adolphe, my brave Adolphe, you are wounded, too?" said Henri.

  Denot muttered something, and turned away; he did not dare to look hisfriends in the face.
br />   "He envies me my honour," said de Lescure; "but it might have been hischance as well as mine, for he was not two feet from me when I waswounded." This was true, for de Lescure had been struck after Denot hadcrossed the bridge with the other men.

  A flag of truce was now sent out by General Quetineau to the royalists,with a proposal that he would give up the castle, and lay down his arms,on being allowed to march out with all his men, and take the road toAngers; but this proposition was not acceded to.

  "No!" said de Lescure to the General's messenger: "tell M. Quetineauthat the Vendeans cannot accede to those terms--we cannot allow hissoldiers to march to Angers, and to return within a week to inflict newcruelties on our poor peasants. M. Quetineau must surrender without anyterms: the practices of our army must be his only guarantee, that hismen will not be massacred in cold blood, as the unfortunate royalistsare massacred when they fall into the hands of the republicans."

  The republicans were not in a condition to insist upon anything; as M.de Lescure had said, the practices of the Vendeans were a guarantee thatno blood would be unnecessarily shed, and relying on this assurancealone, M. Quetineau surrendered the castle and gave up his sword. DeLescure took possession of it till he should be able to hand it over tohis General, and the Vendeans found themselves complete masters ofSaumur.

  There was, however, still a very strong detachment of republican troopson the heights of Bournan, who were watched on one side by Foret and hisdetachment, and on the other by a portion of M. d'Elbee's army. Thesemen had done some execution, as they covered with their cannon a portionof the road over which the Vendeans had passed, but they had taken noactive part whatever in the engagement. What made this the moresingular, was that the garrison at Bournan was composed of the very bestsoldiers of the French republican army. They were under the command ofGeneral Coustard, who kept his position during the whole attack,inactive and unmolested; had he attacked M. d'Elbee's army in the rear,when that officer advanced to support de Lescure's division, theVendeans would probably have been destroyed between the two republicanarmies. Whether the two Generals of the Convention misunderstood eachother, or whether the soldiers at Bournan were unwilling to rout theroyalists, it is impossible to say; but they remained at Bournan tillthe night, and then leaving their post during the darkness, made goodtheir retreat to Angers.

  As soon as the white flag was seen on the walls of Saumur, Cathelineauleft the position which he had held, and entered the town. It wasgreatly in opposition to his own wishes that he had been induced toremain at a distance from the absolute attack, and now he felt almostashamed of himself as the officers and men crowded round him tocongratulate him on the victory which he had gained.

  "No, M. de Lescure," he said, as that officer tendered him GeneralQuetineau's sword, "no, I will never take it from him who has won itwith so much constancy and valour. I must own I envy you your goodfortune, but I will not rob you of the fruits of your exertions."

  "But Cathelineau," said the other, "you are our General, the customs ofwar require--"

  "The customs of war are all changed," replied Cathelineau, "when suchas you and M. de Larochejaquelin make yourselves second to a poorpostillion; at any rate," he added, pressing between his own, the lefthand of M. de Lescure, which still held the sword, "if I am to be thecommander, I must be obeyed. M. de Lescure will not set a bad examplewhen I tell him to keep General Quetineau's sword."

  "And you, General Quetineau," said Cathelineau, "what are yourwishes--your own personal wishes I mean? I have not forgotten that youalone of the republican leaders have shewn mercy to the poor royalists,when they were in your power; you at any rate shall not say that theVendean brigands do not know how to requite kind services." Cathelineaualluded to the name which the republicans had given to the royalists atthe commencement of the war.

  "It little matters to me," said Quetineau, "what becomes of me; were youto give me unconditional liberty, I should go to Paris--and theConvention would accuse me of betraying my trust, and I should becomeanother victim of the guillotine."

  "Of the guillotine!" said Henri; "why, what bloody monsters are thoseyou serve they send you soldiers who know nothing but how to run; dothey expect that with such troops as these you should be victorious,when opposed to men who are individually striving for everything thatis dear to them?"

  "The Convention," said Quetineau, "would ensure success by punishingdefeat. You will find in the end that they are politic; there will,however, be many victims, and I am fated to be one of them."

  "Stay with us, General Quetineau," said de Lescure, "join our forces,and here you will find that honesty and courage are respected. Youcannot, you do not approve of the tyranny of the Convention. We knoweach other of old, and I know that in joining the army, you neverintended to serve under a Republic. You cannot say that in your heartyou are a republican."

  "Did I wish to shew myself a royalist, it would not now become me toproclaim myself one," answered Quetineau. "I entered the army of theKing, but I have chosen to remain a soldier of the Republic. Whatevermay be my feelings, adversity shall not make me false to the colours Ihave carried; besides, gentlemen, if I escaped the anger of theConvention myself, I have a wife in Paris, whose life would be made tosatisfy it; under such circumstances, I presume you would not counselme to become a royalist."

  This was an argument which it was impossible to answer. GeneralQuetineau accepted the present of his liberty, and soon as he was free,he returned to Paris; he was immediately sent to the revolutionarytribunal and tried for his life; and as he himself had predicted, wasguillotined by the Convention for the cowardice of the troops, whom hehad been called upon to take under his command. In the old days ofGreece, when the Kings sinned, the people suffered for it: this law wasreversed under the first French Republic; when the soldiers ran away,the Generals were beheaded.

  The joy of the Vendeans, when they found themselves masters of Saumur,knew no bounds, but they were grotesque rather than unruly in theirdemonstrations; they plundered nothing from the poor people, or evenfrom the shopkeepers; the money that was found in the republican chestwas divided among them, but as this consisted almost entirely ofassignats, it was of but little value. The shopkeepers were surprisedat the liberality of their enemies and conquerors, who were willing todispose of these assignats for anything they would fetch--a little wine,or a few ounces of tobacco; whereas, their own friends, the republicans,had insisted that they should be taken at their nominal value as money,for all goods exposed for sale.

  An enormous poplar had been planted by the towns-people in the centreof the marketplace, which they called the tree of liberty. This was nowa doomed tree. On the evening of the day in which they took the town,the royalist peasants went in procession, and with many cheers hewed itto the ground; it was then treated with every possible contumely--it waschopped, and hacked, and barked; it was kicked, and cuffed, and spatupon; the branches were cut off, and on the bare top was placed a largetattered cap of liberty; the Vendean marksmen then turned out, and firedat the cap till it was cut to pieces; after that, all the papers andbooks, which had belonged to the municipality, every document whichcould be found in the Town-hall, were brought into the square, and piledaround the roots of the tree; and then the whole was set on fire--andtree, papers, and cap of liberty, were consumed together.

  On the next morning, considerable difficulty was experienced indisposing of the prisoners there were about two thousand in the town,and the Vendeans knew that they had no means of keeping them, nor didthey wish to be at the great expense of feeding them; it was contraryto their inclination, their practice, and their consciences, to killthem in cold blood: and they knew from experience, that if they gavethem their liberty, the same men would return within a fortnight,newly-armed, to carry on the war against their liberators, in spite ofany oaths they might take to the contrary.

  "I'll tell you what we will do, M. Henri," said Chapeau, speaking to hismaster, "we will put a mark upon them, so that if we catch them again,we ma
y know them; and then I do think it would be all right to hangthem; or perhaps for the second time we might cut off their ears, andhang them the third time."

  "But how would you mark them, Jacques; men are not like cattle that youcan brand them."

  "I will tell you what," said the little Chevalier, "shave them all likepigs; they cannot all buy wigs, and we shall know them by their baldsconces."

  "That is the very thing, M. Arthur," said Chapeau delighted, "we willshave their heads as clear as the palm of my hand. I am an excellentbarber myself; and I will even get a dozen or two assistants; hair shallbe cheap in Saumur tomorrow; though I fear soap and razors will bescarce."

  Chapeau was so delighted with the proposal that he at once hurried awayto carry it into execution; and Arthur, though he felt that his dignityas an officer would be somewhat compromised, could not resist the boyishtemptation to follow him and see the fun.

  He and Chapeau were not long in raising an efficient corps of barbersand assistant barbers; and few of the shopkeepers, when called upon,thought it advisable to refuse the loan of a razor and a shaving dish.They established themselves in the large room of the Town-hall, and hadthe prisoners brought in by a score at a time; vehemently did the menplead for their hair, and loud did they swear that if allowed to escapefree, they would never again carry arms against the Vendeans; butneither their oaths or their prayers were of any avail, nor yet thebribes which were offered by those who had ought to give; the order tosit down was given imperatively, and if not immediately obeyed, thecommand was somewhat roughly enforced.

  They were shaved by twenty at a time, and while one lot was beingoperated on, another twenty, who were next destined to fill the chairs,were kept standing against the wall. The long hair was first cut offwith scissors, and then the head and whiskers were closely shaved. Thefirst candidates for the soap-dish were very unruly under the operation,but they only got their ears snipped and their skin chipped, and had toreturn to their prisons with their polls all bloody as well as bald.Those who looked on, took a lesson from the folly of their comrades, andmost of them remained quiet. The manoeuvres of the men however were verydifferent during the process; some took it with good humour, andendeavoured to laugh as their locks were falling; some sat still asdeath; others looked fierce and warlike; some were even moved to tears;some fought, and kicked and scratched, and at last had to be corded totheir seats. One unfortunate went down upon his knees, and imploredChapeau by the memory of his mistress, if ever he had been in love, byhis regard for his wife, if he chanced to be married, not to shave hishead. He was engaged to be married, he said, to a young girl at Angers,who had many lovers; she had preferred him for the beauty of his hair:if he returned back bald, he knew that he would be rejected. Chapeau fora time was moved, but the patriot and the royalist triumphed over theman, and Jacques, turning away his face on which a tear was gleaming,with a wave of his hand motioned the young man to the chair.

  Insult was added to injury, for the Chevalier stood at the door with abrush, and a large jar of red paint, and as each man went out of theroom, Arthur made a huge cross upon his bare pate. The poor wretches intheir attempt to rub it off, merely converted the cross into a redpatch, and as they were made to walk across the market-place with theirbald red heads, they gave rise to shouts of laughter, not only from theroyalists, but from the inhabitants of the town.

  For three days the shaving went on, and as the men became experiencedfrom practice, it was conducted with wonderful rapidity. At last, theprisoners were all deprived of their hair, and set at liberty--atemporary bridge was thrown across the Loire, near the Green Cross, andthe men were allowed to march over. As soon as they found themselves onthe other side of the Loire, they were free.

  "Come, my bald pates, come my knights of the ruddy scalp," said Jacques,standing at the corner of the bridge as they passed over, "away with youto the Convention; and if your friends like your appearance, send themto Saumur, and they shall be shaved close, and the barber shall ask forno fee; but remember, if you return again yourselves, your ears will bethe next sacrifice you will be called on to make for your country."