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of the struggle. The troops commanded by these chiefs were divided into three corps, which, with some bodies of reserve, amounted in all to nearly seventy thousand men.

The orders of the Convention to the troops sent to suppress this insurrection, were marked by the bloody spirit which characterized all their proceedings: they decreed that those persons who had taken any part in the revolt were outlaws, and should be shot within twenty-four hours by a military commission; and that the property of those so shot, together with that of all who were slain in battle, should be confiscated.

But the Republicans soon found that they had a more formidable enemy to contend with in the Vendéan army than in the unarmed masses of citizens at Paris. The first expedition of the Royalists was directed against the city of Thouars, occupied by General Queteneau with a division of seven thousand men. The greater part of the troops in this affair were undisciplined peasantry; yet, such was the bravery of the leaders and the devotion of the men, the town was carried by assault, and six thousand prisoners, with twelve pieces of cannon and twenty caissons, fell into the hands of the Royalists: nor is it the least remarkable feature of this victory, that not an inhabitant of the place was maltreated nor a house pillaged. The Vendéans next advanced against Chataignerie, which was garrisoned by four thousand Republicans, and carried it by a vigorous attack; but in this instance the garrison, after suffering severe loss, escaped to Fontenay, where the Royalists followed them. The attack on this latter town was at first unsuccessful: for the peasants, unused to long marches and satisfied with what they had achieved, disbanded themselves in large masses and returned to their homes, so that the army was reduced to an inefficiency of numbers, and compelled to fall back to Chataignerie. The services of the clergy were, however, called to the aid of the army; and the peasantry, giving more heed to their spiritual than to their temporal leaders, rejoined their standards. The combat could now be renewed on more equal terms, and the Royalists again advanced to Fontenay, where the Republicans, ten thousand strong with forty pieces of artillery, were drawn up to receive them. Bonchamps commanded the right, Cathelineau the centre, and d'Elbée the left, while Larochejacquelein led a small but determined body of cavalry. At first, the Vendéans faltered under the sustained discharge of grape shot from the Republican batteries; but Lescure walked forward toward the guns, remained for some moments in the very midst of the iron storm, and cried out to his men that they could see from his standing there in safety that the Republicans did not know how to fire. The men then rallied, followed him to the muzzles of the guns and drove the artillerymen into the town. Lescure still led the pursuit: his troops entered Fontenay with the fugitives and he himself was the first Royalist within the gates. The town immediately surrendered with its artillery, stores, and ammunition; and the greater part of the Republican army were made prisoners.

The Royalists became now much perplexed about the disposal of their prisoners, of whom they had several thousands. To retain them in custody was impossible, as they had no fortified places within their own limits; to follow the example of the Republicans and murder them, was out of the question; at length it was decided to shave their heads and send them home, a proceeding that caused no small merriment to the soldiers. The Vendéans were also successful in other quarters. They gained,

victories at Vetiers, Doné and Montreuil; and at length, resolved to attack the important city of Saumur, where the Republicans were assembled to the number of twenty-two thousand regular troops, besides a large body of National Guards. The Royalist army, forty thousand strong, approached Saumur on the 10th of June. While the officers were concerting a plan of attack, the enthusiastic peasants threw themselves without orders on the advanced guard of the Republicans, and actually made their way into the town in great numbers: but as they acted without leaders and without system, they could not improve their advantage and were driven back. Such troops, however, are easily rallied. The officers took command of the retreating mass, led them back in order, and after a desperate contest, carried the town. This victory was more important than any that had yet been gained over the Republicans by the allied sovereigns of Europe. Eighty pieces of cannon, ten thousand muskets, and more than twelve thousand prisoners fell into the hands of the Vendéans, while their own loss was but sixty men killed and four hundred wounded. The victors, as before, shaved the heads of their prisoners and sent them home, stipulating only that they should not serve against La Vendée: an illusory condition, speedily violated by the bad faith of the Republicans.

The Royalist leaders, flushed with victory, now advanced on Nantes, although a second time the peasants, tired of the war, had withdrawn from the ranks in great numbers. But the expedition ended in disaster. Cathelineau was mortally wounded, and the assault repulsed with considerable loss to the Vendéans.

In the mean time, the Republicans took the offensive, and sent a considerable army under Westerman into the heart of La Vendée. The invasion was at first successful; three towns were taken and burned; but the brave peasantry gathered round their assailants, harassed them, and finally drove Westerman before them with the loss of two-thirds of his forces. A second invasion under Biron with fifty thousand troops, met with a similar reverse: he was defeated with the loss of ten thousand men and all his artillery, baggage and ammunition. But these defeats had the natural effect of exasperating a comparatively powerful government, who had large resources in men and material at their control. The Convention therefore redoubled their efforts to subdue the refractory insurgents. Fourteen thousand men, under Kleber, were directed upon La Vendée, a great part of the garrisons of Valenciennes and Condé were marched to the same quarter, and the National Guard, together with a levy en masse of the neighboring departments, soon followed in the same direction. Before the middle of September, two hundred thousand men surrounded La Vendée and threatened to crush it by a simultaneous assault. For a time, they were successful, having defeated the Royalists in several small engagements and laid waste with fire and sword the districts they traversed. At length, however, Kleber encountered Charette and Bonchamps near Torfou, where after a well contested action he was defeated, and but for the devotion of Colonel Chouardin and his regiment, who maintained the bridge of Boussay and suffered themselves to be wholly destroyed in its defence, his army would have been annihilated. The Royalists followed this up by an attack on General Beysser, at Montaigut, on General Mukierski, at St. Fulgent, and on the retreating columns of Kleber, in every one of which battles they defeated the invaders with the loss of prisoners, baggage, ammunition, and artillery. They were equally successful in

other quarters, and the Republican forces quitted the province within a fortnight from the time they entered it. Thus, by a series of the most brilliant combinations, seconded by the heroic exertions of the peasants, an invasion of one hundred thousand regular troops and a larger number of undisciplined levies, was defeated, and losses inflicted on the invaders far exceeding the entire loss that they had sustained from the allies in a whole year's campaign.

But valor cannot contend always against innumerable odds: and the unfortunate Vendéans were opposed by the resources of a whole nation. The Convention, now fully aware of the danger of this protracted war, once more resolved to terminate it at a blow. The Republican armies again entered the devoted territory in great force; retook the towns in their march; devastated the land; and in two successive battles defeated the Vendéans, who, in addition to their other losses, were deprived of the services of three of their principal leaders-Lescure, d'Elbée and Bonchamps, being mortally wounded. In every quarter, the march of the Republicans was disgraced by atrocious cruelty: every town and village was burned to the ground, and the inhabitants, without distinction of sex or age, put to the sword. The deplorable condition of the province, at this time, was thus represented to the Convention by Bourbotte and Turreau: "We may say with truth that La Vendée no longer exists. A profound solitude reigns in the country recently occupied by the rebels: you may travel far in those districts without meeting a dwelling or a living creature; for, with the exception of Cholet, St. Florent, and some little towns, where the number of Patriots greatly exceeds that of the Royalists, we have left behind us nothing but ashes and piles of dead.”

Yet, fortune had not wholly abandoned the Vendéans: for, on the 23rd of October, their retreating forces encountered a large body of Republican veterans under general Lechelle, and, after a desperate action, totally overthrew them, destroying no less than twelve thousand of their troops and capturing nineteen pieces of cannon. General Lechelle was so overwhelmed by this disaster, that he resigned his command in despair and retired to Tours, where he soon after died from anxiety and chagrin.

This astonishing victory was gained on the very day that Bourbotte and Turreau had triumphantly announced to the Convention in Paris that La Vendée no longer existed: it may be imagined with what consternation they, a few days afterward received intelligence that the Republican army was destroyed and nothing remained to prevent the advance of the Royalists upon the capital.

After resting a few weeks to recruit their numbers and repair their various losses, the Royalists, November 14th, advanced upon Granville; here they met with a repulse and lost eighteen hundred men. On their retreat, they took the road of Pontorson, where they arrived on the 19th of November, and found eighteen thousand Republicans drawn up to intercept them; but the Vendéans drove them through the streets at the point of the bayonet, and captured their baggage and artillery. The Republicans now retreated to Dol, where their numbers were raised by reënforcement to thirty-five thousand men. The Royalists pursued and attacked them in the streets at midnight. A horrible melée ensued, in which the Vendéan women and children-who, driven from their homes by the Republicans, in October, had been since forced to follow the fortunes of the army-were trampled and destroyed by thousands.

The victory, however, was with the Royalists, and the Republicans retreated to Antrain, where they again endeavored to make head against their conquerors. But the Royalists followed up their success, entered the town pell-mell with the fugitives, and made prisoners of the whole army. There was now great danger that an indiscriminate massacre would ensue, for the Royalist troops were wrought up by the precedent cruelties of the Republicans to the highest pitch of exasperation. But in this, as in all cases when the Royalists were victorious, humanity prevailed over retributive vengeance: the prisoners and the wounded were treated with the same care as their own soldiers, and sent home without exchange or condition.

Yet these victories, brilliant as they were in a military point of view, were of no permanent advantage to the brave Royalists; who, in a foreign province, accompanied by their proscribed families, and encumbered with sick and wounded men, women and children, were forced to continue a retreat that, after all, promised them neither safety nor repose. After many painful marches, in which they were harassed and occasionally defeated by the accumulating forces of the Republicans, and during which they of necessity abandoned their women, children and stragglers to be butchered by their pursuers, they arrived at Mons in the last degree of fatigue, depression and suffering. Here they were compelled to halt from mere inability to proceed, and they thus gave the Republican generals time to concert measures for their destruction. It was not long delayed. Marceau, Westerman and Kleber speedily assembled forty thousand men, and attacked the town with the utmost impetuosity. The Royalist troops made a heroic but unavailing defence; they were routed and scattered through the town, and the Republicans commenced an indiscriminate massacre. Ten thousand soldiers and an equal number of women and children perished in this horrible carnage, and a remnant only of the army made good its retreat to Savenay. Here some ten thousand men, of whom but six thousand were armed, took their last stand. For a long time they held the Republican columns in check, and when at length obliged to retire, they fell back in good order, and served the few pieces of artillery they had left until the last cartridge was discharged even then, the rear-guard continued to fight with their swords and bayonets till they all sunk under the fire of the Republicans. Of eighty thousand souls, who, but six weeks before, had crossed the Loire, scarcely three thousand, in straggling parties, ever returned to La Vendée. With these disasters, the Vendéan war ceased for a time; and it would never have revived, had the Republicans made a humane use of their bloody victory. But the darkest period of the tragedy was approaching, and in the rear of the armies came those fiends in human form who exceeded the crimes even of Marat and Robespierre, and whose deeds have left a deeper stain on the annals of France than the massacre of St. Bartholomew, or all the preceding horrors of the Revolution. Their atrocities took away hope from the vanquished; and, in revenge and despair, the Chouan bands sprung up, who, under Charette, Stofflet and Tinteniac, long maintained the Royal cause in the Western Provinces. Thurreau was the first who commenced against the Vendéans a systematic war of extermination. He formed twelve corps, aptly denominated infernal columns, whose orders were to traverse the country in every direction, isolate it from all communication with the rest of the

world, carry off or destroy all the grain and cattle, murder all the inhab itants and burn all the houses. These orders were but too faithfully executed, though at intervals Charette descended from his fastnesses and took a bloody revenge on detached parties of the invaders.

While Thurreau was pursuing this system of extermination in La Vendée, the scaffold was erected at Nantes, and those infernal executions commenced, which fill the blackest page in the history of the world. A Revolutionary Tribunal was established there, of which Carrier was the presiding demon-Carrier, known in all nations as the inventor of that last of barbarous atrocities, the Republican Marriage, in which two persons of different sexes, generally an old man and an old woman, or a young man and a young woman, bereft of every kind of clothing, were bound together before the multitude, exposed in a boat in that situation for half an hour or more, and then thrown into the river. It was ascertained by authentic documents that, in addition to the adults, six hundred children perished in this horrible manner: and such was the quantity of corpses accumulated in the Loire, that the water became infected, and a public ordinance was issued forbidding its use. For a long time afterward, mariners, when heaving their anchors in that vicinity, frequently brought up the ghastly remains of the murdered victims.

CHAPTER VII.

CAMPAIGN OF 1793.

THE year 1793, was distinguished by the novel measure of treaties of alliance between England, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Naples, Sardinia and Portugal-all Europe, in short, against Republican France; and thus did the regicides of that country, as the first fruit of their murderous triumph, find themselves excluded from the pale of civilized nations. The force of the allies was three hundred and sixty-four thousand men acting on the whole circumference of France, from Calais to Bayonne; and that of the Republicans amounted to two hundred and twenty thousand men, inferior troops for the most part, but possessing the advantage of unity of language, government and public feeling, and adding to these the important fact of acting in an interior and concentric circle, which enables one corps rapidly to communicate with and support another-an advantage of which the allies, by being spread over a much larger circumference, were deprived. But both the contending parties. labored under some serious embarassments. On the part of the allies, there was that want of union so common and so fatal to a combination of national interests. Russia, especially, one of the most important powers of the league, was at that time more anxious to complete the subjugation of despoiled Poland than to resist the arms of Revolutionary France, and the views of Prussia, too, were partly turned in the same direction, while between Prussia and Austria jealousies existed as to their relative posi tion in the allied army. On this point, Prussia went so far as to demand a division of the forces of the inferior powers of the league, a part