No Surrender! A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee

by G. A. Henty

"Well, madame, I hope that I shall soon have the pleasure of sailing into Poole again, with you and Monsieur Leigh on board; and also with my good master, Monsieur Flambard, and his wife."

"When will you be off again?" Patsey asked eagerly.

"That is what I have come to talk with you about, Madame Martin," Monsieur Flambard said. "I have pretty good information as to what passes, at the meetings of the wretches who call themselves the committee of public safety, and I hear that there will very shortly be a seizure of a number of prominent citizens, and my name has been mentioned. They are only hanging back until they can decide upon what shall be the pretext, since none of those named have taken any part in politics here. All those who have done so have been already seized. However, the blow may come at any moment.

"The Henriette has already begun to discharge her cargo. Fortunately, there is not much of it. The moment that she has finished she will drop down below the rest of the shipping, and be ready to start at any moment. If we find that the matter is not absolutely pressing, we will go quietly on board as soon as she is ready, and sail at once; as there will then be no fear of her being stopped.

"If, however, I find that the order for our arrest is on the point of being issued, I will send her down and let her lie beyond Fort Medoc and Blaye. If it were discovered that I was missing, a few hours after she had started, it would be suspected at once that I had gone in the Henriette. Mounted messengers would carry the news down to both forts, and the boat would be forced to heave to, as she passed between them.

"Therefore I shall have a light carriage, with two fast horses, kept in readiness a quarter of a mile outside the town; and a relay of horses fifteen miles on, which is about halfway, and join the ship below the forts. If, as may possibly happen, I am suddenly arrested in the streets, I shall have my servant near me. He will have his orders, which will be to hurry back home to tell his mistress to put on the disguise of a peasant woman, that has already been prepared for her, and to go with her at once to the carriage; and another man, whom I can also thoroughly trust, is to come here and say to you, 'It is a bad day.'

"Then you and your sister and the child will at once start to join my wife. She has most reluctantly consented to carry out this plan for, as I tell her, it will add to my sufferings a hundredfold, were she also to be arrested."

By dint of great exertions the Henriette was unloaded by the following evening and, half an hour after her last bale was ashore, she dropped down the river with the tide. She was to anchor off a small village, two miles beyond Fort Medoc; and if inquiry was made as to why she stopped there, Lefaux was to say that he was to take in some wine that Monsieur Flambard had bought from a large grower in that district, and that the lugger was then going to Charente to fill up with brandy for Havre.

Leigh had, the day before, gone with the merchant into the extensive cellars which adjoined the house.

"There is not a man here," Monsieur Flambard said, "who would not do all in his power for me. Some of them have been with the firm nearly all their lives. I treat them well, and I am happy to say that not one of them has taken any part in our last troubles. Indeed, I am told that is one of the matters that, if I am arrested, will be brought against me. It will be said that it was a proof of my enmity to the Convention that none of my people took the side of the patriots.