“There is no hope for us,” answered Agatha; “but there is perfect certainty for him. The good Cathelineau has restored his spirit to Him who gave it to avenge His glory.”
CHAPTER VI. — COMMISSIONERS OF THE REPUBLIC.
The taking Saumur frightened the Convention much more than any of the previous victories of the Vendeans. The republicans lost a vast quantity of military stores, arms, gunpowder, cannons, and soldiers’ clothing; and, which was much worse than the loss itself these treasures had fallen into the hands of an enemy, whose chief weakness consisted in the want of such articles. The royalists since the beginning of the revolt had always shewn courage and determination in action; but they had never before been collected in such numbers, or combated with forces so fully prepared for resistance, as those whom they had so signally conquered at Saumur. The Convention began to be aware that some strong effort would be necessary to quell the spirit of the Vendeans. France at the time was surrounded by hostile troops. At the moment in which the republicans were flying from the royalists at Saumur, the soldiers of the Convention were marching out of Valenciennes, that fortified city having been taken by the united arms of Austria and England. Condé also had fallen, and on the Rhine, the French troops who had occupied Mayence with so much triumph, were again on the point of being driven from it by the Prussians.
The Committee of Public Safety, then the repository of the supreme power in Paris, was aware that unless the loyalty of La Vendée was utterly exterminated, the royalists of that district would sooner or later join themselves to the allies, and become the nucleus of an overpowering aristocratic party in France. There were at the time thousands, and tens and hundreds of thousands in France who would gladly have welcomed the extinction of the fearful Republic which domineered over them, had not every man feared to express his opinion. The Republic had declared, that opposition to its behests, in deed, or in word, or even in thought, as far as thoughts could be surmised, should be punished with death; and by adhering to the purport of this horrid decree, the voice of a nation returning to its senses was subdued. Men feared to rise against the incubus which oppressed them, lest others more cowardly than themselves should not join them; and the Committee of Public Safety felt that their prolonged existence depended on their being able to perpetuate this fear. It determined, therefore, to strike terror into the nation by exhibiting a fearful example in La Vendée. After full consideration, the Committee absolutely resolved to exterminate the inhabitants of the country—utterly to destroy them all, men, women, and children—to burn every town, every village, and every house—to put an end to all life in the doomed district, and to sweep from the face of the country man, beast, and vegetable. The land was to be left without proprietors, without a population, and without produce; it was to be converted into a huge Golgotha, a burial-place for every thing that had life within it; and then, when utterly purged by fire and massacre, it was to be given up to new colonists, good children of the Republic, who should enjoy the fertility of a land soaked with the blood of its former inhabitants. Such was the deliberate resolution of the Committee of Public Safety, and no time was lost in commencing the work of destruction.
Barrère, one of the members of the Committee, undertook to see the work put in a proper train, and for this purpose he left Paris for the scene of action. Westerman and Santerre accompanied him, and to them was committed the task of accomplishing the wishes of the Committee. There was already a republican army in La Vendée, under the command of General Biron, but the troops of which it was composed were chiefly raw levies, recruits lately collected by the conscription, without discipline, and, in a great degree, without courage; but the men who were now brought to carry on the war, were the best soldiers whom France could supply. Westerman brought with him a legion of German mercenaries, on whom he could rely for the perpetration of any atrocity, and Santerre was at the head of the seven thousand men, whom the allied army had permitted to march out of Valenciennes, and to return to Paris.
It was in the beginning of July that this worthy triumvirate met at Angers, on their road to La Vendée. Cathelineau had driven the republican garrison out of this town immediately after the victory at Saumur, but the royalists made no attempt to keep possession of it, and the troops who had evacuated it at their approach, returned to it almost immediately. It was now thronged with republican soldiers of all denominations, who exercised every species of tyranny over the townspeople. Food, drink, forage, clothes, and even luxuries were demanded, and taken in the name of the Convention from every shop, and the slightest resistance to these requisitions, was punished as treason to the Republic. The Vendeans, in possession of the same town only a fortnight before, had injured no one, had taken nothing without paying for it, aid had done everything to prevent the presence of their army being felt as a curse; and yet Angers was a noted republican town; it had shown no favours to the royalists, and received with open arms the messengers of the Convention. Such was the way in which the republicans rewarded their friends, and the royalists avenged themselves on their enemies.
One hot July evening, five men were seated in a parlour of the Mayor’s house in Angers, but the poor Mayor himself was not allowed, nor probably did he wish, to be one of the party. Glasses were on the table before them, and the empty bottles, which were there also, showed, that however important the subjects might be which they were discussing, they still considered that some degree of self-indulgence was compatible with their duties. The air of the room was heavy with tobacco smoke, and one or two of the number still had cigars between their lips. They were all armed, though two of them were not in uniform, and the manner in which they had their arms disposed, showed that they did not quite conceive themselves to be in security in these their convivial moments. The men were Barrère, Westerman, and Santerre, and two of the republican Generals, Chouardin and Bourbotte.
Westerman and the two latter were in uniform, and the fact of their having arms, was only in keeping with their general appearance: but the other two were in plain clothes, and their pistols, which were lying among the glasses on the table, and the huge swords which stood upright against their chairs, gave a hideous aspect to the party, and made them look as though they were suspicious of each other.