No Surrender! A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee

Jean Martin and Leigh had joined their friends, in their retreat in the forest, after the repulse of all the Republican columns. They had heard, while engaged in the thick of the fighting, of the death of Monsieur Martin. He had never recovered from the effects of his imprisonment at Nantes, and instead of gaining strength he had become weaker and weaker. The terrible uncertainty of the position, the news that constantly arrived of desperate battles, and the conviction that in the end the Vendeans would be crushed, told heavily upon him. He took to his bed, and sank gradually.

"I am not sorry, my child," he said to Patsey, the day before he died, "that I am going to leave you. I was wrong in not taking Jean's advice, and sailing for England with my wife and daughter. However, it is useless to think of that, now.

"I can see terrible times in store for all here. It is evident that no mercy is to be shown to the Vendeans. It has been decreed by the Convention that they are to be hunted down like wild beasts.

"Had I lived, I should have been a terrible burden to you. I should have hampered your movements and destroyed any chance, whatever, that you might have of escaping from these fiends. It would have been impossible for me to have supported the fatigues and hardships of a flight, and I should have been the means of bringing destruction on you all. It is therefore better, in every respect, that I should go.

"I pray that Heaven will protect you and Jean and your brave brother, and enable you to reach England in safety. You will bear my last message to my wife and Louise. You will tell them that my last thought was of them, my last feeling one of gratitude to God that they are in safety, and that I have been permitted to die in peace and quiet."

"It is a sad homecoming this time, Jean," Patsey said, as her husband and Leigh rode up to the door.

"It is indeed, Patsey; and yet, even when the news came to me, I could scarcely grieve that it was so. I had seen how he was fading when I went away, and was not surprised when I heard that he had gone. For me it is one care, one anxiety, the less, in future.

"Patsey, we will be together. I cannot leave you here, when Leigh and I are away. The child shall go with us and, when all is lost, we will escape or die together."

"I am glad to hear you say so, Jean. It has been terrible waiting here, and knowing that you were in the midst of dangers, and that even while I thought of you, you might be lying dead. I shall be glad, indeed, to share your fate, whatever it is."

For three weeks the little party lived quietly in the cottage. There were many discussions as to the future. It was agreed that, in case of a final reverse, it would be better that they should travel alone.

"The more of us there are, the more certain to attract observation," Jean said. "We must go without Francois and Marthe. Their chance of safety will be greater if they either return to their villages, or take up their abode with the family of some woodman–or rather, Marthe's safety would be greater. As to Francois, he has long been eager to join in the fighting, and it is only his fidelity that has constrained him to remain in what he considers is a disgraceful position, when every other man who can bear arms is fighting. We will therefore take him with us and, when the day of battle comes, he will join the fighting men and, if we are defeated, must care for his own safety.

"When we fight, I shall always leave you at a village, a mile or two away. You will have the horse ready to mount, and we shall join you at once, if we are defeated."

"We ought to be disguised, Jean," Leigh said.

"It would be well," Jean said, "but I hardly see what disguise would be of use to us. Certainly not that of peasants, for in that dress we should be shot down, without question, by the first party of Blues we came across. Even if we succeed in reaching the river and crossing it, we may be sure that the authorities will be everywhere on the lookout for fugitive peasants. It would be better to be shot, at once, than to await in prison death by the guillotine."

"I should say that it does not matter a bit how we are dressed, till we reach the river. We know now pretty nearly every lane in the country," Leigh said, "and I should think that we ought to be able to reach the Loire."

"That is where the difficulty will begin. In the first place there will be the trouble of crossing, and then that of making our way through the country. Certainly we could not do so as Vendean peasants."

"I should say, Jean, that the best disguises would be those of fairly well-to-do townspeople; something like those we wore into Nantes, but rather less formal–the sort of thing that ordinary tradesmen, without any strong political feeling either way, would wear. I don't say that we shall not be suspected, however we are dressed, because no one in his senses would be travelling about just at present; but when once we get beyond Tours, if we go that way, we might pass without much notice.

"Which way do you think that we ought to go, Jean?"

Jean shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't see that there is any choice. There would be very little chance of escaping from any of the ports of Brittany, and La Rochelle would be still more hopeless. As far south as Bordeaux we should be in a comparatively peaceful country, and I should hope to find friends there. The eastern frontier is of course the safest to cross, but the distance is very great and, in the towns near the border, a very sharp lookout is kept to prevent emigres escaping.

"There is a rumour that Lyons has declared against the Convention, but if we got there it is certain that it would be but La Vendee over again. Lyons cannot resist all France and, as soon as they have done with us here, they will be able to send any number of troops to stamp out these risings.

"Undoubtedly, if we could get there, Toulon would be the best place. I have heard for certain that they have driven out the extreme party, and have admitted the English fleet. Once there, we should be able to take berths in a ship bound somewhere abroad–it matters little where–and thence get a passage to England. Most probably we shall be able to arrange to go direct from Toulon, for there are sure to be vessels coming and going with stores for the British fleet."

"But that would be a terrible journey, Jean," his wife said.

"Yes, I think that would be quite out of the question. It seems to me that our best chance would be either to cross the Loire and then make for Le Mans, and so up through Alencon to Honfleur–that way we should be east of the disturbed district–or, if we found that a vast number of fugitives had made their way into Brittany, as is almost certain to be the case, we might bear more to the east, and go up through Vendome and Chartres and Evreux, and then branch off and strike the Seine near Honfleur. In that case we should be outside the district where they would be searching for fugitives from here.

"Once on the seashore, or on the Seine, it would be hard if we could not steal a fishing boat, and cross the Channel. However, one must of course be guided by circumstances. Still, I do think that it would be as well to buy the disguises Leigh suggests, without loss of time. I will ride over to Chatillon, tomorrow, and get them."

Chapter 13: Across The Loire

Marthe was filled with grief, when she heard that it had been decided that it was better that she should return to her native village; but her mistress pointed out to her that, if all went well, she could rejoin them. If things went badly, and they escaped, they would send for her wherever they might be; but in case disaster compelled them to fly, three persons were as many as could hope to travel together, without exciting suspicion. The nurse however begged that, at any rate, she might go with them to the headquarters of the army.

"Everyone is going," she said; "and they say that, if we are beaten in the next battle, they will cross the Loire and take refuge in Brittany, for the Blues will not leave a soul alive in La Vendee. I should have nowhere to go to here, and will keep with the others, whatever happens. If you are with them, madame, I can rejoin you; if not, I hope to be with you, afterward."

It was indeed an exodus, rather than the gathering of an army, that was taking place. The atrocities committed by the invaders, the destruction of every village, the clouds of smoke which ascended from the burning woods, created so terrible a scare among the peasants that the greater portion of the villages and farms were entirely deserted, and every road leading to Chollet, which was the rendezvous where the fighting men were ordered to gather, was crowded with fugitives. Francois walked by the horse's head. Patsey, the nurse, and the child, with a trunk containing articles of absolute necessity, occupied the cart. Jean and Leigh rode ahead.

The company of Cathelineau's scouts no longer existed. More than half of them had fallen in the late battles. Their services were no longer required as scouts, and the survivors had joined their fathers and brothers, and formed part of the command of Bonchamp.

On the fourteenth of October the enemy's columns were closing in upon Chollet. Those round Mortagne were marching forward, when the advanced guard, under General Beaupuy, were suddenly attacked by the Vendeans, while entangled in the lanes. The head of the column fought well; but those in the rear, finding themselves also attacked, and fearing that the retreat would be cut off, retired hastily to Mortagne. The column would have been destroyed, had not Beaupuy promptly sent up large reinforcements. After a long and obstinate fight the Vendeans were driven from the woods and, the Republican artillery opening upon them, they were compelled to retire to Chollet.

Here no halt was made. Kleber had also been fiercely attacked, but had also, though with much difficulty, repulsed his assailants. The next morning the Republicans entered Chollet, which they found deserted by the enemy.

On the seventeenth, their whole force being now concentrated there, they were about to move forward towards Beaupreau; when the advanced guard was hotly attacked and, in a short time, the combat became general. For a time the Vendeans bore down all opposition, but as the whole of the Republican force came into action, their advance was arrested.

The battle began soon after one o'clock. It raged without intermission till nightfall. No decisive advantage had been gained on either side, and the result was still doubtful, when a panic took place among the multitude of noncombatants in the rear of the Vendeans. The cry was raised, "To the Loire!"

The panic spread. In vain the leaders and their officers galloped backwards and forwards, endeavouring to restore confidence, and shouted to the men that victory was still in their grasp. In the darkness and din they could only be heard by those immediately round them, and even these they failed to reanimate; and the men who had for seven hours fought, as Kleber himself reported, like tigers, lost heart.

Lescure had fallen in the fighting on the fourteenth. Bonchamp and d'Elbee were both desperately wounded at the battle at Chollet, and were carried off by their men. La Rochejaquelein, with whom Jean Martin and Leigh were riding, had made almost superhuman efforts to check the panic; and they fell back, almost broken hearted, with a band of peasants, who held together to the last. On the previous day Leigh had escorted Patsey to Beaupreau, and it was to this town that the fugitives made their way, arriving there at midnight.

"Thank God that you are both alive!" Patsey said, bursting into tears as her husband entered the room in which she was established.

"We can hardly believe it ourselves," Jean said. "It has been a terrible day, indeed. Our men fought nobly, and I firmly believe that we should have won the day, had not an unaccountable panic set in. What caused it I know not. We were doing well everywhere, and had begun to drive them back and, could we have fought on for another half hour it was likely that, as usual, a panic would have seized them.

"However, Patsey, they would have gathered again stronger than ever, and it must have come to the same thing, in the long run. Now put on your disguise, at once. We will lie down for two hours, and see you off before daybreak. I do not know whether la Rochejaquelein, who must now be considered in command, since d'Elbee and Bonchamp are both desperately wounded, will gather a force to act as a rearguard. If so we must stay with him; but I do not think that even his influence would suffice to hold any considerable body of peasants together. All have convinced themselves that there is safety in Brittany.

"At any rate, the enemy will need a day's rest before they pursue. They must have suffered quite as heavily as we have."

The night, however, was not to pass quietly. At two o'clock two officers, who had remained as piquets, rode into the town with news that Westermann's division, which had marched through Moulet and had taken no part in the action, was approaching. The horn sounded the alarm, and the fugitives started up and renewed their flight. Marthe could not be left behind now, nor did the others desire it; and until they had crossed the Loire there could be no separation, for the whole country would swarm, in forty-eight hours, with parties of the enemy, hunting down and slaying those who had taken refuge in the woods.

Jean and Leigh had lain down in the cart, to prevent any of the fugitives seizing it. The two women and the child were hurried down, and took their places in it. Francois, who had escaped, had fortunately found them; and took the reins, and the journey was continued.

There was no pursuit. It was only a portion of Westermann's force that had arrived, and these were so exhausted and worn out, by the length of their march and by the fact that they had been unable to obtain food by the way, that they threw themselves down when they reached the town, incapable of marching a mile farther.

At Beaupreau there had been no fewer than five thousand Republican prisoners, kept under guard. On the arrival of the routed Vendeans, the peasants, as a last act of retaliation, would have slain them; but Bonchamp, who was at the point of death, ordered them to be set free.

"It is the last order that I shall ever give," he said to the peasants assembled round his litter. "Surely you will not disobey me, my children."

The order was obeyed, and the prisoners were at once sent off; and as the Republican column marched out from Chollet, the next day, they encountered on the road their liberated comrades. The sentiments with which the commissioners of the Convention were animated is evidenced by the fact that one of them declared, in a letter to the commander-in-chief of the army, that the release of these prisoners by the Vendeans was a regrettable affair; and recommended that no mention, whatever, should be made of it in the despatches to Paris, lest this act of mercy by the insurgents should arouse public opinion to insist upon a cessation of the measures that had been taken for the annihilation of the Vendeans.

The fugitives, a vast crowd of over one hundred thousand men, women, and children, reached Saint Florent without coming in contact with the enemy. The Republican generals, indeed, had no idea that the peasants had any intention of quitting their beloved country; and imagined that they would disperse to their homes again, and that there remained only the task of hunting them down. A company had been left on a hill which commanded Saint Florent, but they had no idea of being attacked, and had not even taken the precaution of removing the boats across the river.

As soon as they arrived, the Vendeans attacked the post with fury, and captured it. Twenty boats were found, and the crossing was effected with no little difficulty. There were still two or three thousand, principally women and children, to be taken over, when a party of Republican dragoons arrived. Numbers of the women and children were massacred; but the great bulk, flying precipitately, regained the country beyond the heights of Saint Florent, and took refuge in the woods.

The multitude were, for the present, safe. There was no strong force of the enemy between Nantes and Saumur, and they halted for the night, dispirited, worn out, and filled with grief. They had left their homes and all they cared for behind. They were in a strange country, without aim or purpose, their only hope being that the Bretons would rise and join them–a poor hope, since the terrible vengeance that had been taken on La Vendee could not but strike terror throughout Brittany, also.

Jean Martin and Leigh had seen Patsey and the nurse placed in one of the first boats that crossed.

"Do not go far from the spot where you land," they said. "We shall stay here, until all is over. If the Blues come up before all have crossed, we shall swim across with our horses; be under no uneasiness about us."

Taking the horse out of the shafts of the cart, and putting a saddle that they had brought with them on its back, they left the three animals in charge of Francois; and then aided other officers to keep order among the crowd, and to prevent them from pressing into the boats, as they returned from the other bank, in such numbers as to sink them. All day the work went on quietly and regularly, until so comparatively few remained that hope became strong that all would cross, before any of the enemy arrived.

That hope was destroyed when, suddenly, the enemy's cavalry appeared at the edge of the slope, and came galloping down. The officers in vain tried to get the few men that remained to make a stand. They were too dispirited to attempt to do so, and the little throng broke up and fled, some one way, some another.

Fortunately an empty boat had just returned, and into this the other officers leapt; while Jean, with his two companions, led the horses into the water. They had already linked the reins. Francois was unable to swim but, at Jean's order, he took hold of the tail of the horse in the middle; while Jean and Leigh swam by the heads of the two outside horses, and without difficulty the other side was gained. Patsey, who had had her eye fixed upon them all day, was standing at the spot where they landed.

They were near the town of Ancenis, and a portion of the Vendeans entered the place, which was wholly undefended. The inhabitants were in abject terror, thinking that the town would be sacked; and were surprised to find that the peasants did no one any harm, and were ready to pay for anything that they required. So long, indeed, as any money whatever remained, the Vendeans paid scrupulously. When it was all expended, the chiefs did the only thing in their power, issuing notes promising to pay; and although these had no value, save in the good faith of the Vendeans, they were received by the Bretons as readily as the assignats of the Republic–which, indeed, like the notes of the Vendeans, were never destined to be paid.

Had the army plunged into Brittany after the capture of Saumur, there can be no doubt that the peasantry would everywhere have risen; but coming as fugitives and exiles, they were a warning rather than a source of enthusiasm; and although small numbers of peasants joined them, the accession of force was very trifling.

Jean Martin, his wife, and Leigh held an anxious consultation that evening. They had found a poor lodging, after attending a meeting of the leaders, at which la Rochejaquelein had been unanimously elected commander-in-chief; Bonchamp having died, while d'Elbee, wounded to death, had been left at the cottage of a Breton peasant, who promised to conceal him. The young soldier had accepted the fearful responsibility with the greatest reluctance. He, and those around him, saw plainly enough that the only hope of escape from annihilation was the landing of a British force to their assistance. Unhappily, however, England had not as yet awoke to the tremendous nature of the struggle that was going on. Her army was a small one; and her fleet, as yet, had not attained the dimensions that were, before many years, to render her the unquestioned mistress of the seas.

The feeling that the Revolution was the fruit of centuries of oppression; and that, terrible as were the excesses committed in the name of liberty, the cause of the Revolution was still the cause of the peoples of Europe, had created a party sufficiently powerful to hamper the ministry. Moreover, the government was badly informed in every respect by its agents in France, and had no idea of the extent of the rising in La Vendee, or how nobly the people there had been defending themselves against the whole force of France. It is not too much to say that had England, at this time, landed twenty thousand troops in Brittany or La Vendee, the whole course of events in Europe would have been changed. The French Revolution would have been crushed before it became formidable to Europe, and countless millions of money and millions of lives would have been saved.

Throughout France there was a considerable portion of the population who would have rejoiced in the overthrow of the Republic, for even in the large towns its crimes had provoked reaction. Toulon had opened its gates to the English. Lyons was in arms against the Republic. Normandy's discontent was general, and its peasantry would have joined those of Brittany and La Vendee, had there been but a fair prospect of success.

England, however, did nothing, but stood passive until the peasantry of La Vendee were all but exterminated; and indeed, added to their misfortunes by promising aid that never was sent, and thus encouraging them to maintain a resistance that added to the exasperation of their enemies, and to their own misfortunes and sufferings.

"What are we going to do?" Patsey asked, as her husband and Leigh returned from the meeting.

"That is more than anyone can say," Jean replied. "We shall, for the present, move north. We are like a flight of locusts. We must move since we must eat, and no district could furnish subsistence for eighty thousand people, for more than a day or two.

"There can be no doubt that the impulse to cross the Loire was a mad one. On the other side we at least knew the country, and it would have been far better to have died fighting, there, than to throw ourselves across the river. It was well nigh a miracle that we got across, and it will need nothing short of a miracle to get us back again.

"Of one thing we may be sure: the whole host of our enemies will, by this time, be in movement. We should never have got across, had they dreamed that such was our intention. Now that we have done it, you may be sure that they will strain every effort to prevent us from returning. Probably, by this time, half their forces are marching to cross at Nantes. The other half are pressing on to Saumur. In three or four days they will be united again, and will be between us and the river.

"Were we a smaller body, were we only men, I should say that we ought to march another twenty miles north, then sweep round either east or west and, while the enemy followed the north bank of the river to effect a junction, we should march all night without a halt, pass them, and hurl ourselves either upon Saumur or Nantes, and so return to La Vendee. But with such a host as this, there would be little hope of success. I fancy that we shall march to Laval, and there halt for a day or two. By that time the whole force of the enemy will have come up, and there will be another battle."

"And we, Jean?"

"I see nothing but for us to march with them. We know nothing of the movements of the enemy and, were we to try to make our way across the country, we might run into their arms. Besides, Leigh and I have both agreed that, at present at least, we cannot leave Rochejaquelein."

"We could not, indeed, Patsey," Leigh broke in. "If you had seen him this evening when, with tears in his eyes, he accepted our choice, you would feel as we do. It was all very well for us, before, to talk of making off; but now that the worst has happened, if it were only for his sake, I should stay by him; though I think that Jean, with the responsibility of you and your child, would be justified in going."

"No," Patsey said firmly, "whatever comes, we will stay together. As Jean said, you cannot desert the cause now. As long as there are battles to fight we must stay with them, and it is not until further fighting has become impossible that we, like others, must endeavour to shift for ourselves."