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Updated: June 16, 2025
The republican soldiers had been attacked and utterly routed; most of them were now prisoners in the town; those who had escaped had retreated to Saumur, and even they had left their arms behind them. All this good fortune greatly inspirited the Vendeans. The men talked with the utmost certainty of what they would do when they were masters of Saumur.
He leaned to his next neighbor and whispered a few words, which went from ear to ear and lip to lip, passing Marie and the two officers, until they reached the heart of one whom they struck to death. The leaders of the Vendeans and the Chouans assembled round that table looked at the Marquis de Montauran with cruel curiosity.
No one could have fought better than your people did, but they had all France against them; and few, indeed, of those who were engaged from the first can ever have returned to their homes. And even when they get there there can be no safety for them, for Carrier and his commissioners seem to be determined to annihilate the Vendeans altogether."
Indeed, the bulk of the revolutionary troops possessed little more discipline than the Vendeans themselves and, being uninspired, as were the latter, by a feeling either of religion or of patriotic enthusiasm, they were no match for men who were willing to give their lives for the cause. The Vendeans were far better armed than when they commenced the struggle.
No arrangement could ever be proposed to the Vendeans, which did not include a toleration of Christianity; and to refuse that to patriots and republicans, which was granted to rebels and royalists, was deemed at this time neither reasonable nor politic.
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.
Some of these men had been fighting without respite for nine days as they fell back, with the Fourth army, from the Belgian border. With them, since August 22, had been the remarkable Moroccan division under General Humbert. Then there was the Eleventh corps of Bretons and Vendeans, which had been through the same terrible retreat.
The ignorant Vendeans then could give lessons of policy and humanity, which the "enlightened" republicans were not capable of profiting by.
Let us imagine to ourselves the position of the President of the sitting of the "Jeu de Paume," of the first Mayor of Paris, in a city besieged by the Vendéans! We cannot presume that the unfavourable opinion of the Convention under which he was labouring, and the rigorous surveillance to which he was subjected, would have saved him from harsh treatment if the town had been taken.
The wine-shops were all open, and densely filled with men who were rejoicing over the victory which had been gained that morning; and the Breton soldiers were boasting of what they had done, while the Vendeans talked equally loudly of what they would do when their Generals would once more lead them out against the blues.
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