Cadoudal looked around him to make sure it was true; then he cried in a loud voice: “Forward! Enjoy yourselves, my lads!”
This permission, which to Vendéans and Chouans, was equivalent to sounding a charge, was scarcely given before the Chouans spread over the fields to cries of “Vive le roi!” waving their hats with one hand and their guns with the other.
Instead of keeping in rank like the Republicans, they scattered like sharpshooters, forming an immense crescent, of which Georges and his horse were the centre.
A moment later the Republicans were flanked and the firing began. Cadoudal’s men were nearly all poachers, that is to say, excellent marksmen, armed with English carbines, able to carry twice the length of the army musket. Though the first shots fired might have seemed wide of range, these messengers of death nevertheless brought down several men in the Republican ranks.
“Forward!” cried the general.
The soldiers marched on, bayonets fixed; but in a few moments there was no enemy before them. Cadoudal’s hundred men had turned skirmishers; they had separated, and fifty men were harassing both of the enemy’s flanks. General Hatry ordered his men to wheel to the right and left. Then came the order: “Fire!”
Two volleys followed with the precision and unanimity of well disciplined troops; but they were almost without result, for the Republicans were firing upon scattered men. Not so with the Chouans, who fired on a mass; with them every shot told.
Roland saw the disadvantage of the position. He looked around and, amid the smoke, distinguished Cadoudal, erect and motionless as an equestrian statue. He understood that the royalist leader was waiting for him.
With a cry he spurred his horse toward him. As if to save him part of the way, Cadoudal put his horse to a gallop. But a hundred feet from Cadoudal he drew rein. “Attention!” he said to Branche-d’Or and his companions.
“Don’t be alarmed, general; here we are,” said Branche-d’Or.