No Surrender! A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee

by G. A. Henty

"Well, then, monsieur, your father has been arrested and is in the prison; and you know what that means!"

"Father arrested!" Jean exclaimed; "on what grounds? He never expressed an opinion as to public affairs. That at heart he hated what has been going on, I know; but he never spoke strongly, even to me, and when I have heard his opinion asked, he has always replied that he was a trader, and that a man could not give his attention to business if he worried himself over politics. He attended to his trade, and left it to those who liked, to manage the government of the country.

"What of my mother and sister?"

"They are safe, monsieur. He sent them off a fortnight before, in disguise, to La Rochelle; at least, so I have heard from the fishermen. And as the Henriette was lying there at the time, and sailed two days after, there is not much doubt but that they sailed in her for England.

"Your father was denounced before the committee of public safety as one who was hostile to the Convention. He was accused of having sent large sums of money to England, and was believed to have sent his wife and daughter there also, with the intention, of course, of following them; and the fact that you were known to be fighting in the ranks of the brigands, as they call the Vendeans, was also mentioned as an additional crime on his part."

"Then we have a double task to carry out, Leigh," Jean said grimly.

"Now I will tell you what we came here for, Brenon. Six days ago a small party of the Blue cavalry came, at night, to my chateau. I was away, but they carried off my wife as a prisoner, and burnt the house to the ground. So we have come here to see if we cannot get her out of prison.''

"You have thought of such a thing as that?" the man exclaimed in surprise. "Ah, monsieur! It is well nigh an impossibility that you have undertaken. The villains know that there are hundreds of men, friends of the prisoners with whom they have crowded the jails, who would tear them down stone by stone, if they had the power; but in addition to the prison warders--not the men that used to be there, but men taken from the lowest class in the town--the prisons are watched by what they call the volunteers, fifteen hundred men belonging to the scum of the city--the men from the slaughterhouses, the skinners', and the tan yards Some of these are ever on guard round the prisons, night and day.

"There have been great changes here. A year ago, almost everyone thought that the Assembly was going to do wonderful things. No one knew exactly what. According to what they said, everyone was to be able to eat meat, seven days a week, to wear good clothes, and to do just as much work as pleased him and no more. Even the fishermen and sailors were fools enough to believe it.

"But there is a great change now. At first they approved of cutting off the heads of those who, they were told, were the cause of all misery and poverty; but when, every day, fresh prisoners were brought in, and it was not the nobles only but quiet citizens--tradesmen, manufacturers, doctors, and advocates--and every morning a score were carried out to be guillotined, men began to change their opinion; especially when they found that the more heads were cut off, the less work there was and the poorer they became. They began to talk among themselves and, when it came to executing women and children, as well as men, they turned round altogether.