No Surrender! A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee

by G. A. Henty

"If I was sure that it would burn the whole of it down, I should not mind," Leigh exclaimed. "But there is not much fear of that. If it cleared out the whole of the slums, where the supporters of the gang of murderers they call the committee of public safety live, I should rejoice most heartily. As there are several wide streets between them and the business quarters, and as they will have all the soldiers of the town to assist in fighting the flames, I do not think that there will be any fear of the fire spreading very far."

"Well, at any rate, Leigh, you have hit on a plan that offers a good chance of success. We shall find out, in a day or two, how many of the boatmen we can get to aid us, and how far they will be disposed to go. We must learn, in some way, how long it is likely to be before it is absolutely necessary to act. If we find that there is time, we can send some of the boys off to the army, to bring their fathers and brothers back with them. The sixty might not be enough, but with a hundred of our men, I think we should be pretty sure of success."

[Chapter 11]: The Attack On Nantes.

When three or four miles down the river the boat was anchored, and the two men were called into the cabin, and Leigh's scheme explained to them.

"It is a big affair, sir," Medart said thoughtfully, when Jean had concluded. "Now, there is no love lost between us and the ruffians who carry out the committee's orders. They call us river rats, we call them sewer rats, and there has been many fights between the fishermen and these fellows, as far back as I can remember, and lately these have been much more frequent. If the plan was only to burn down their quarters, there are a good many who would lend a hand; because it could be done quietly, and they would have no particular reason for suspecting that it was the work of the fishermen. But as for going into the jail, that would be different. We should not have time, by what you say, to hunt up and kill all the warders; and it would therefore be known, at once, that we were concerned. Five or six of our fellows have already had their heads chopped off, on suspicion of having aided Royalists to escape. They don't mind whom they lay hands on, and they don't trouble themselves to search, but just seize the first they come to who, perhaps in a cabaret, has said a word against their doings.

"As to the trials, they are no trials at all. One of their fellows comes in and says, 'I heard this man abusing the authorities, and I accuse him also of being concerned in the escape of so and so.' It is no odds what the prisoner says. The fellow who acts as judge looks at the jury, who are all their creatures; they say 'Guilty 'and he says' Death!' and the accused are marched off again to the prison, to wait until their turn comes for the guillotine. Well you see, if this prison was broken into as you propose, and it was known that the sailors had a hand in it, the chances are that they would march a couple of hundred of us into the great square, which would be choke full of the National Guard and volunteers, and just shoot us down."

Jean was silent. The probability that things would go as the man said was so evident that he had no answer.

"I think the way to get over that difficulty," Leigh said, when he saw that Jean was puzzled, "would be for you all quietly to buy other clothes or, better still, for them to be bought for you by your wives. They should be such clothes as the peasants buy, when they come into the town. It would then be supposed that the attack was made by a party of Breton peasantry. As a good many other prisoners would escape, in addition to Monsieur Martin and your captain's wife, there would be no reason to suppose that the plot was specially arranged to aid their escape, or that any of the people of this town were concerned in the matter."

"That is so, Master Leigh," Rouget said. "It might be managed in that way. But I think that most of our chaps had better be told off for firing the town. I think that a good many might be willing to undertake that job, for I have heard it said, many and many a time, that they would like to burn the sewer rats out. There are other men who would, I am sure, rather join in the attack on the jail, if they could do so without putting the lives of all of us in danger.

"As to getting hold of an artilleryman, I don't know that that would be difficult. The men employed on that sort of work are all old soldiers, and many of these, though they dare not say so, hate what is going on just as much as we do. I have met one of them with Emile Moufflet, who served with you, captain, for two or three years. When we have been chatting together, he has said things about the committee that would have cost him his head, if he had been overheard. I know that his chum is in charge of some stores, but whether they are powder or not, I cannot say. But at any rate, Emile will be able to find out for me the name of several of them who have charge of powder; and he would be likely to know which of them had sentiments like his own, and how far they could be trusted.