It can be seen that such a state of things could not last: moreover, my father by his resistance risked his life in a far more dangerous game than that of the battlefield.
The Committee of Public Safety replied on the 10th of Frimaire in the following terms:—
"The Committee of Public Safety decrees:
"That the Provisional Executive Council shall immediately send 10,000 men of the Army of the Western Pyrenees into la Vendée to join the portion of the Army of the West which is acting against the rebels of that department and its neighbouring tracts on the left bank of the Loire. This division is to be under the command of General Dumas.
"The Executive Council is to take the most active steps to carry out these orders, and must forward its despatches by special courier.
"Signed in the Records:
"ROBESPIERRE, LINDET, RIVIÈRE, CARNOT, BILLAULD-VARENNES, and C. A. PRIEUR.
"Authenticated copy.
"J. BOUCHOTTE, Minister of War."
My father went to la Vendée.
There he found an entirely different state of things.
As soon as he arrived General Canclaux was recalled to Paris under suspicion.
Everything fell on my father's shoulders; and he received the chief command of the Army of the West.
He began his work by taking stock of the men at his disposal, as a good workman before setting to work examines the tools in his hands.
The tools were bad, according to my father's report. If we read it attentively in the light of to-day, if we take careful note of the time it was penned (17 Vendémiaire, year II), we shall see that there was sufficient matter in this report to have guillotined him twenty times over.