Despite the white heat of enthusiasm, which is apt to singe the susceptibilities of others, his, at least, was a modest, merry, and balanced mind. Ranked as he will be always with his Cathelineau, Bonchamp, and Lescure, he differs sharply from them: that is, he was farther from a saint or a conventional hero. None the less is he a type of young French manhood ere it had grown wholly modern and complex; the last of a single-minded race, soldiers by accident, helpers and servers of men by choice. In short, he was a Vendean, behind his century in shrewdness, ahead of it in joy; a straggler from the pageant of the ancestral crusaders, having all the thirst for justice, the rational gayety, the boyish bel air of the sworded squires of the Middle Ages. A phrase meant for Sidney will grace him: “God hath disdeigned the worlde of this most noble Spirit.” Let him ride ever now in memory, a beardless knight erect upon Fallowdeer, his white scarf around him, the nodding cockade of his foes behind; women watching his lips for comfort and assurance, the happy Hermenée prattling between his knees; beautiful indeed, even in the smoke of war, with his oval face, his hale and winning aspect, his terse speech and candid ways; not the Count nor the General La Rochejaquelein, but “Master Henry, a hard hitter and a dear fellow,” as his compatriots knew him, and as Froissart, his fittest chronicler, might have loved him.
CHART ON A REDUCED SCALE OF VENDÉE MILITAIRE.
Transcriber’s Note:
Spelling has been retained as used in the original publication, including both Rochejaquelein and Rochejacquelein and possible typographical errors.