De Lescure with his sister returned on the following morning to Clisson; for so was his château called. Clisson is about two leagues south of the town of Brassiere, in the province of Poitou, and is situated in the southern part of the Bocage. M. de Lescure owned the château and a considerable territory around it. He was a man of large property in that country where the properties were all comparatively small, and was in other respects also by far the most influential person in the neighbourhood. He had married a lady with a large fortune, which gave him more means of assisting the poor than most of the gentlemen resident in the Bocage possessed. He took a deep interest in the welfare of those around him; he shared their joys, and sympathized with their grief, and he was consequently beloved, and almost adored.
He had now undertaken to join with his whole heart the insurgents against the Republic, and he was fully determined to do so; he had made up his mind that it was his duty to oppose measures which he thought destructive to the happiness of his countrymen, and to make an effort to re-establish the throne; but he did not bring to the work the sanguine hope of success, the absolute pleasure in the task which animated Larochejaquelin; nor yet the sacred enthusiastic chivalry of Cathelineau, who was firmly convinced of the truth of his cause, and believed that the justice of God would not allow the murderers of a King, and the blasphemers of his name to prevail against the arms of people who were both loyal and faithful.
De Lescure had studied and thought much; he was older than Larochejaquelin, much better educated than Cathelineau. He was as ardent in the cause as they were; why else had he undertaken it? but he understood better than they did the fearful chances which were against them: the odds against which they had to fight, the almost insuperable difficulties in their way. He knew that the peasantry around them would be brave and enthusiastic followers, but he also knew that it would be long before they were disciplined soldiers. He was sure that they would fight stoutly round their homes and their families; but he felt that it would be almost impossible to lead any body of them to a distance from their own fields. He foresaw also all the horrors into which they were about to plunge; horrors, of which an honourable death on the field of battle would be the least. The Republic had already shown the bitterness of their malice towards those who opposed them, and de Lescure knew what mercy it would shew to those of his party who fell into its power.
Besides, how could they hope for success against the arms of a whole nation supported by a despotic government. His friends talked sanguinely of aid from England, from Austria, and from Prussia; but he feared that that aid would come too late, after their houses were burnt, and their fields destroyed; after the best among them had fallen; after their children had been murdered; when the country should be depopulated, and nothing but the name of La Vendée left.
With all these fears around his heart, and yet with a firm determination to give himself entirely to the cause in which he was embarked, de Lescure rode home to tell his young wife, to whom he was but barely two years married, that he must not only leave her, and give up the life so congenial to both their tastes, which they had lately led; but that he was going to place himself in constant danger, and leave her and all he loved in danger also.
“You must be very good to Victoriana,” he said to his sister; “you must be very good to each other, Marie, for you will both have much to bear.”
“We will, we will,” said Marie; “but you, Charles, you will be with us; at any rate not far from us.”
“I may be near you, and yet not with you; or I may soon be placed beyond all human troubles. I would have you prepare yourself; of all the curses which can fall on a country, a civil war is the most cruel.”
Madame de Lescure was the daughter of a nobleman of high rank; she had been celebrated as a beauty, and known to possess a great fortune; she had been feted and caressed in the world, but she had not been spoiled; she was possessed of much quiet sense; and though she was a woman of strong passions, she kept them under control. When her husband told her, therefore, that the quiet morning of their life was over, that they had now to wade through contest, bloodshed, and civil war, and that probably all their earthly bliss would be brought to a violent end before the country was again quiet, she neither screamed nor fainted; but she felt, what he intended that she should feel that she must, now, more entirely than ever, look for her happiness in some world beyond the present one.
“I know, Victorine,” said he, when they were alone together in the evening, when not even his own dear sister Marie was there to mar the sacred sweetness of their conference, “I know that I am doing right, and that gives me strength to leave you, and our darling child. I know that I am about to do my duty; and you would not wish that I should remain here in safety, when my King and my country require my services.”