For some days after the attack and rescue, there was great confusion in the château of Durbellière. The peasants by degrees returned to their own homes, or went to Chatillon, at which place it was now intended to muster the whole armed royalist force which could be collected in La Vendée. Chatillon was in the very centre of the revolted district, and not above three leagues from Durbellière; and at this place the Vendean leaders had now determined to assemble, that they might come to some fixed plan, and organize their resistance to the Convention.
De Lescure and Henri together agreed to give Santerre his unconditional liberty. In the first place, they conceived it to be good policy to abandon the custody of a man whom, if kept a prisoner, they were sure the Republic would make a great effort to liberate; and who, if he ever again served against them at all, would, as they thought, be less inclined to exercise barbarity than any other man whom the Convention would be likely to send on the duty. Besides, Agatha and the Marquis really felt grateful to Santerre, for having shown a want of that demoniac cruelty with which they supposed him to have been imbued; and it was, therefore, resolved to escort him personally to the northern frontier of La Vendée, and there set him at liberty, but to detain his soldiers prisoners at Chatillon; and this was accordingly done.
They had much more difficulty in disposing of Denot. Had he been turned loose from the château, to go where he pleased, and do what he pleased, he would to a certainty have been killed by the peasantry. De Lescure asked Santerre to take charge of him, but this he refused to do, saying that he considered the young man was a disgrace to any party, or any person, who had aught to do with him, and that he would not undertake to be responsible for his safety.
Denot himself would neither say or do anything. Henri never saw him; but de Lescure had different interviews with him, and did all in his power to rouse him to some feeling as to the future; but all in vain. He usually refused to make any answer whatever, and when he did speak, he merely persisted in his declaration that he was willing to die, and that if he were left alive, he had no wish at all as to what should become of him. It was at last decided to send him to his own house at Fleury, with a strong caution to the servants there that their master was temporarily insane; and there to leave him to his chance. “When he finds himself alone, and disregarded,” said de Lescure, “he will come to his senses, and probably emigrate: it is impossible for us now to do more for him. May God send that he may live to repent the great crime which he has attempted.”
Now again everything was bustle and confusion at Durbellière. Arms and gunpowder were again collected. The men again used all their efforts in assembling the royalist troops, the women in preparing the different necessaries for the army. The united families were at Durbellière, and there was no longer any danger of their separation, for at Clisson not one stone was left standing upon another.