“Ah! M. de Lescure,” said he, “there are so many more fitting than me.”
“Not one in all La Vendée,” said M. Bonchamps: “sit where you are, Cathelineau.”
“You must do it, Cathelineau;” whispered his friend Foret; “the peasants would not endure to see any man put above you.”
“Cathelineau will not shrink from the burden which the Lord has called upon him to bear,” said Father Jerome.
“Providence,” said d’Elbée, “has summoned the good Cathelineau to this high duty; he will not, I am sure, oppose its decrees.”
And thus Cathelineau found himself seated in the Mayor’s chair at the head of the table, whilst the highest noblemen and gentry of the country took their places around it, and from that moment Cathelineau became the General-in-Chief of the Vendeans.
Each leader then gave in the numbers of the men who had come with him, and it was found that the army consisted of above fifteen thousand men. Lists were then made out of the arms and accoutrements which they possessed, and the men in a rude way were drafted into regiments under the command of the leaders who had brought them. There was a small body of cavalry equipped in most various manners, and mounted on horses, which resembled anything rather than a regular squadron of troopers: these were under the immediate command of Henri Larochejaquelin.
“Gentlemen,” said Cathelineau, “we have, you know, three different attacks to make, three positions to carry, before we can be masters of Saumur.”
“Yes,” said Bonchamps, “there in the camp at Varin on the right, and the redoubts of Bournan on the left; the fortifications of the town itself lie between them, and a little to the rear of both.”
“Exactly, M. Bonchamps; the town itself, I take, is the easiest task of the three; but as we are situated it must be the last.”