Telegraphic despatches soon brought more circumstantial and more heartening accounts. "It was known, that the peasants, who had been ordered to furnish merely four men from each parish, had shown hesitation and ill will; and that the chiefs had found great trouble in collecting four or five thousand men, consisting in great part of vagabonds, and workmen out of employ." In fine it was known, that General Travot, having been informed of the landing, and the road the convoy had taken, went in pursuit of the insurgents, came up with them in advance of St. Gilles, killed about three hundred men, and seized the greater part of the arms and ammunition.
The Emperor thought, that this insurrection might be quashed by other means than by force; and, adopting in this respect the conciliatory views proposed by General Travot, he directed the minister of police to invite MM. de Malartie and two other Vendean chiefs, MM. de la Beraudiere and de Flavigny, to repair in the character of pacificators to their ancient companions in arms; and remonstrate with them, that it was not in the plains of the West, the fate of the throne would be decided; and that, the final expulsion or restoration of Louis XVIII. depending neither on their efforts, nor on their defeat, the French blood, which they were about to shed in la Vendée, would be spilt to no purpose.
He sent orders to General Lamarque, whom he had just invested with the supreme direction of this war[16], to favour the negotiations of M. de Malartie to the utmost of his power: at the same time he directed him, to declare formally to la Roche-jaquelin, and to the other chiefs of the insurgents, that, if they persisted in continuing the civil war, quarter would no longer be given them, and their houses and possessions should be sacked and burned[17].
He likewise recommended to him, to press as closely as possible on the bands of la Vendée, in order to leave them no hope of safety but in prompt submission. But this recommendation was superfluous. By unexpected attacks, skilful marches, and continually increasing successes, General Travot had already struck such terror and alarm into the insurgents, that they took much more pains to shun than to fight him.
In pursuing the movement of concentration, that had been prescribed him, this general accidentally fell in with the royal army by night, at Aisenay. A few musket shots spread dismay and disorder through their ranks; they rushed one upon another, and dispersed so completely, that MM. de Sapineau and Suzannet were several days without soldiers. M. d'Autichamp, though distant from the place of engagement, experienced the same fate. His troops abandoned him with no less readiness, than he had found difficulty in assembling them.
This defection was not solely the effect of the terror, with which the imperial army could not fail naturally to inspire a body of wretched peasants; it was promoted by several other circumstances. In the first place it resulted from the little confidence of the insurgents in the experience and capacity of their General in chief, the Marquis de la Roche-jaquelin. They did justice to his conspicuous bravery; but he had forfeited their good opinion, by incessantly endangering them through false manœuvres, and by endeavouring to subject them to a regular service, incompatible with their domestic habits, and with their mode of making war.
In the next place it arose from the dissension, that had introduced itself among their generals from the commencement of the war. The Marquis de la Roche-jaquelin, ardent and ambitious, had arrogated to himself the supreme command; and the old founders of the royal army, the Autichamps, Suzannets, and Sapineaus, did not obey without regret the imperious orders of a young officer, hitherto without experience or reputation.
But the first, the fundamental cause of the slackness or inactivity of the Vendeans, was still more the change, that had taken place in the political and military state of France since the coronation of Napoleon. They knew, that the time when they struck terror into the blues, and made themselves masters of their artillery with clubs, was no more. They knew, that the days of terror, of anarchy, were terminated for ever; and that they had no longer to dread those abuses, or those excesses, or those crimes, which had provoked and fomented their first insurrection. As to the attachment for the Bourbon family, which they had inherited from their fathers, this, though not banished from their hearts, was balanced by the fear of seeing the calamities and devastations of the late civil war revived; by the uneasiness they felt from the renewal of the double despotism of the nobles and priests; and perhaps also by the remembrance of the kindness of Napoleon. It was he, who had restored to them their churches and their ministers; who had raised from their ruins their desolate habitations[18]; and who had freed them at once from revolutionary exactions, and from the plunderings of chouanry.
The Emperor, having no doubt of the approaching termination and happy issue of this war, announced it openly at a public audience. "Every thing will soon be finished," said he, "in la Vendée. The Vendeans will not fight any more. They are retiring to their homes one by one; and the fight will be at an end for want of combatants."
The news he received from the King of Naples by no means inspired him with the same satisfaction.