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Updated: June 15, 2025
This bridge was between Bournan and the town, as also between the camp and the town, and the possession of this bridge would be of great advantage to the royalist army. Stofflet was charged to obtain this advantage, if he did not find that the cannons from the town prevented him.
"You will find," whispered Stofflet to his neighbour, "that as Providence has called upon him, he will be willing enough." "I will do my best," said d'Elbee "as I am called upon; and may the Lord direct me, that I may fight His battle so as to do honour to His name."
Cathelineau, one of the earliest, was a carrier, sacristan in his village, who had never seen a shot fired when he went out with a few hundred neighbours and took Cholet. By his side there was a gamekeeper, who had been a soldier, and came from the eastern frontier. As his name was Christopher, the Germans corrupted it into Stoffel, and he made it famous in the form of Stofflet.
The Vendeans beat the gendarmerie at Saint Florent, and took for leaders, in different directions, Cathelineau, a waggoner, Charette, a naval officer, and Stofflet, a gamekeeper.
But there had been a moment in the day during which fortune wavered, and the lost cause owed its ruin to the absence of Charette. Stofflet and La Rochejaquelein led the retreat from Cholet to the Loire. It was a day's march, and there was no pursuit. Bonchamps was still living when they came to the river, and still able to give one last order.
On the 6th of June, the Vendean army, composed of forty thousand men, under Cathelineau, Lescure, Stofflet, and La Rochejaquelin, marched on Saumur, which it took by storm. It then prepared to attack and capture Nantes, to secure the possession of its own country, and become master of the course of the Loire.
Henri Larochejaquelin, during the whole proceeding, had been walking about the room, sitting now in one place, and now in another. At the present moment, he was sitting next to Adolphe, who, when Stofflet's name was mentioned, whispered to him, but almost audibly: "Gracious heaven! Stofflet! the whole affair is becoming discreditable. How can any gentleman serve under such a man as that?"
Stofflet succeeded to the command, and carried on the war with great skill and courage for another year, though with barbarities such as had never been permitted by the gentle men; but his career was stained by the death of Marigny, whom, by false accusations, he was induced to sentence to be shot.
It was long before Chapeau discontinued his narrative, but it is unnecessary for us to follow farther in the sad details which he had to give of the loss of the brave Vendean leaders. The Prince de Talinont, Charette, Stofflet, Marigny, all of them fell: "And yet," said Chapeau, with a boast, which evidently gave him intense satisfaction, "La Vendee was never conquered.
"I hardly know how to speak," said d'Elbee, "where the subject is so important." "M. d'Elbee is not wont to be so modest," said Stofflet; "does he not trust that Providence will inspire him with wisdom, when he opens his mouth to give his opinion?"
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