But the failure of Vendée and the startling successes in Brittany alike paled before a much greater event. On the 9th of October, the very day that Gaston de Trélan had ridden away alone from La Vergne at sunrise, General Bonaparte, abandoning his army in Egypt, landed at Fréjus. On the 16th, the day after the taking of Le Mans, he was at Paris. In a month from the date of his landing, the 9th of November, the Directory lay in the dust, and he was acclaimed First Consul of the temporary Consulate, and the saviour of France. Across the path of the Bourbons there no longer sprawled a hydra-headed incompetence. One man of genius, with a vehement, implacable will stood there, armed.
The road to power had been made easy for him. France was only crying out for a deliverer to raise her from the state of mud and blood in which she lay. Attempts had already been made to find one in Joubert or Moreau. It was conceivable that even had a Bourbon appeared he might very well have been accepted. But it was too late now.
Yet this moment was the very apogee of the Royalist revival in the West. Never had they been better organised, better recognised as a military force. What they had taken or threatened in three weeks was amazing. In the Morbihan they were entirely masters of the countryside; in Ille-et-Vilaine they had strong detachments near Rennes, Fougères, and Vitré; Bourmont in Maine occupied the bourgs and even the little towns on the banks of the Sarthe and the Loire; and distant Finistère had become almost volcanic.
On account of these very successes, overtures of peace had already been made, from the side of the Directory, before the great change of Brumaire. With them was charged the Republican general-in-chief in the West, the Comte de Hédouville, a gentleman with the manners and predilections of his caste, and he, in his headquarters at Angers, was actually in conference with the chosen go-between—a Royalist lady, Mme Turpin de Crissé—on the day of the coup d’état itself, so that his success was announced to a Government already overthrown. For he naturally directed his powers of conciliation towards the least victorious wing of the Royalist forces. It was with aversion and amazement, therefore, that the leaders of Brittany, Maine and Anjou heard that an armistice had been signed on November 25 for the left bank of the Loire. And during the cessation of hostilities the Comte de Grignon was surprised and killed by the Republicans, so that since d’Autichamp, who had always opposed the taking up of arms, was more than willing, and Suzannet was hors de combat, there remained no obstacle to the pacification of Vendée. A conference for that object was imminent.
But a suspension of arms on the left bank of the Loire almost of necessity brought about one on the right also, whether the leaders were anxious for it or no. Châtillon indeed was of the former for he was old and ill. But Cadoudal and Mercier received it with great disfavour. Yet, whether it were to result in peace or no, the armistice for the purpose of treating of pacification was promulgated on December 9, and Pouancé in Anjou was appointed as the place of meeting.
The Marquis de Kersaint, away in unvanquished Finistère, was too bitterly disgusted to attend these conferences in person. But, unless he wished to lose touch with the other leaders, he was obliged to be represented there, and he sent to Pouancé two delegates, his chief of staff, the Chevalier du Ménars, and the Abbé Chassin.
(2)
From the Abbé Chassin’s Diary.
Pouancé, Christmas Eve, 1799.—A good occasion for reviewing, before I say my first Mass of the feast, these brief notes that I have been keeping since M. du Ménars and I came here a fortnight ago. Yet really all that I can say is that we are still here, discussing, discussing . . . The energy expended on these conferences might have launched a battle or a siege. Perhaps in its way it is as usefully spent.
The party for continuing the war is in a minority, that is clear. But it is a very strong minority—Cadoudal, our mainstay here, Mercier, the Comte de Bourmont, one or two minor chiefs, and, of course, through our voices, the “Marquis de Kersaint.” That the Vendean leaders cry for peace one cannot wonder, for Vendée is exhausted. They say they have not even enough munitions for a headquarters guard. But the war minority would more than once have liked to break off the conferences, and it was only after stormy discussions that M. de Bourmont was named as delegate to Hédouville at Angers. He has others with him now. I have hardly dared inform Gaston how things were tending, though I was sent here for that purpose.