Towards the end of December the floods carried away the bridges which had been thrown over the Nive, but they were soon replaced. A detachment was sent towards Hasparren to clear the country in the rear of the right wing of the enemy’s cavalry under Paris; and on new year’s day a small island in the Adour, near Monguerre, was taken from the French without opposition. At this time Clausel was assembling a considerable force on the Gave de Oleron; on the third he drove in the cavalry piquets between the Joyeuse and the Bidouze, and attacked the posts of Major-General Buchan’s Portugueze brigade on the former river, near La Bastide, and those of the third division in Bouloc. The enemy turned the right of the Portugueze brigade on the heights of La Costa, and established two divisions there and on La Bastide, on the Joyeuse, with the remainder of their force on the Bidouze and the Gave. The centre and right of the allies were immediately concentrated and prepared to move; Lord Wellington reconnoitred the enemy the next day, and would have attacked them on the ensuing, if the weather and the swelling of the rivulets had not occasioned a day’s delay. But on the 6th the attack was made by the 3rd and 4th divisions, supported by Buchan’s Portugueze brigade of General Le Cor’s division, and the cavalry under Major-General Fane; the enemy were dislodged without loss on our side, and the troops resumed their former positions. Mina was at this time with three battalions at Bidarray and St. Etienne de Baygorey, observing the movements of the enemy from St. Jean de Pied-de-Port. The people of the vale of Baygorey had distinguished themselves in the war of 1793 by their brave opposition to the Spanish troops; that spirit had been transmitted to the present generation, and it was called into action by their countryman Harispe, one of the most active of the French generals. They were the only peasantry who manifested any disposition to act against the allies; by their aid, with that of Paris’s division, and such troops as could be spared from the garrison of St. Jean, Harispe ♦Jan. 12.♦ moved against Mina, and compelled him to retire into the valley of Aldudes.
♦False reports circulated by the French government.♦
These were the only military movements on this side during the month of January; and the state of affairs here was disguised as much as possible from the French people; Buonaparte persisting to the last in that system of falsehood by which he had so long flattered and deluded them. It could not, indeed, be concealed that Lord Wellington’s army was wintering in France, though by what train of events it should have arrived there the French were left to guess. But it was affirmed that he had been defeated in the actions before Bayonne with the loss of 15,000 men; that he now thought of nothing more than intrenching himself within his own lines; that Clausel had assumed an attitude which alarmed him; ... that his situation was becoming more and more critical; ... that the misunderstanding between the Spanish and English troops increased every day; ... that the British commander began to fear lest the part of the French army which remained in the camp at Bayonne might cut off his retreat; in fine, that the allies were filled with consternation, and that while they were suffering from want of provisions, their convoys were wrecked upon the coast of the Landes department, and supplied the French with beef and clothing, and with packages of pressed hay, which were sent to Bayonne, and there served out to Marshal Soult’s cavalry.
♦The Duc d’Angoulême goes to Lord Wellingtons army.♦
But while the Moniteur, in its official articles, dwelt thus upon a chance shipwreck, and attempted, in its usual strain, to deceive the French people, that part of the nation who remembered what had been the state of France before its baneful revolution regarded the progress of the British arms with secret satisfaction, because it offered a hope of the restoration of the Bourbons, and of that peace and security which could be obtained by no other means. The Bourbons themselves thought it was now time for them to take advantage of the course of events, and remind France that by putting an end to their unmerited exile she might put an end to her own multiplied calamities. The Duc d’Angoulême, therefore, with the Duc de Guiche, Comte Etienne de Damas, and Comte d’Escars, sailed from England for Passages, and proceeded to St. Jean de Luz. But as the allied powers, whether wisely or not, had as yet held out no encouragement to the hopes of this royal family, Lord Wellington could receive him with no public honours. Many of the inhabitants, however, hastened to pay their court to him; and the mayor of this little town, expressing to him a hope that the calamities which France had so long endured would soon be terminated by peace, observed, that peace could no otherwise be guaranteed than by the word of their legitimate sovereign; and requested his Royal Highness to convey to the king an assurance of cordial allegiance from the municipality and people of that place. Deputations were also sent to him from the neighbouring communes; and, before his arrival, a circumstance had occurred which more unequivocally manifested the disposition of the people. There was an emigrant officer in the British army whose family estates were in the neighbourhood of Pau; a native of that part of the country came to St. Jean de Luz charged by the tenants of those estates to tell him how much they wished to live again under their own old laws and customs, and how happy they should be once more to pay their rents to their old master. The Duc, under the name of the Comte de Pradelles, lived with the utmost privacy, as the circumstances required; but he addressed a proclamation to the French army, and agents were not wanting to circulate it. He called upon them to rally round the fleurs-de-lys, which he was come, he said, to display once more in his dear country; and he guaranteed, in the name of the king, his uncle, their rank and pay to those who should join him, and rewards proportionate to their services. “Soldiers,” he said, “it is the descendant of Henri IV.; ... it is the husband of a princess whose misfortunes are unequalled, but whose only wishes are for the prosperity of France; ... it is a prince who, forgetting, in imitation of your king, all his own sufferings, and mindful only of yours, throws himself now with confidence into your arms!”
♦Rochejaquelein comes to the British camp.♦
A movement such as this address was intended to excite had already begun, but it was among men who had been trained in better principles than the soldiers of the revolution. An agent of Louis XVIII. had arrived at Bourdeaux, and had found in that city the Marquis de la Rochejaquelein, whom it was part of his commission to see, and say to him that the king depended upon him for La Vendée. Rochejaquelein is one of the redeeming names that appear in the black and bloody history of the French revolution. The present Marquis had succeeded to the title, the principles, and the virtues of his brother, who, in the first Vendean war, had addressed his soldiers in these memorable words: “Si j’avance, suivez-moi; si je recule, tuez-moi; si je meurs, vengez-moi[6]!” “If I advance, follow me; if I falter, kill me; if I fall, avenge me!” He now went through Anjou and Touraine, and awakened that spirit which the National Convention had not been able, even by its most atrocious barbarities, to suppress. A scheme was formed for delivering Ferdinand from Valençay; but the person who was to have headed the enterprise died at the time when it should have taken place; and, indeed, no advantage could have been derived from it then, if it had succeeded. Rochejaquelein’s designs were suspected, and M. Lynch, the mayor of Bourdeaux, who was then at Paris, warned him, by an express that orders were given for arresting him, and bringing him dead or alive before Savary, Buonaparte’s worthy minister of police. He escaped to Bourdeaux, and while remaining there in concealment, heard that the Duc d’Angoulême was with the English army. Upon this he determined immediately to repair to him, and receive his orders; but before he set out upon this most hazardous adventure he requested an interview with M. Lynch, who was just then returned from the capital. That magistrate, who was always a loyalist at heart, foresaw the speedy overthrow of Buonaparte, and had already given his word to the Polignacs (then in confinement), that if Bourdeaux declared for the king, he would be the first to mount the white cockade; this promise he now renewed to Rochejaquelein, and charged him to assure the Duc of his devoted services, and that he would deliver to him the keys of the town. After many difficulties and dangers, the Marquis succeeded in getting on board a ship bound, with a license, to S. Sebastian’s; and, escaping from a storm by which several vessels were wrecked on the coast, he landed at Passages, and hastened to St. Jean de Luz.
♦Lord Wellington refuses to send an expedition to the coast of Poitou.♦
When the Duc heard his report of the state of feeling in La Vendée, of the general opinion which prevailed in France, and of the disposition which there was to receive him in Bourdeaux, he declared that nothing should now make him forsake that country in which he had found subjects who were still so faithful. Without delay, accompanied by the Duc de Guiche, Rochejaquelein proceeded to Lord Wellington, who was then at Garitz; he assured him that Bourdeaux would declare for the Bourbons as soon as a British force should approach it; and, as the means of effecting a powerful diversion in aid of that loyal city, he proposed that the British General should send one or two vessels and a few hundred men to land him by night upon the coast of Poitou, escort him some two leagues into the interior, and then leave him there: while they re-embarked and drew the attention of the troops, he would pursue his way alone, and raise once more that loyal race who had exerted themselves so dutifully, and suffered so severely, in the most frantic and ferocious times of the revolution. Lord Wellington listened with great interest to these representations; but he doubted whether the feelings of the people towards the royal family were what Rochejaquelein believed them to be; and he did not think himself authorized to detach even a small force upon an expedition such as ♦Mémoires de la Marquise de la Rochejaquelein, pp. 513–28.♦ was proposed, when he had no instructions from his own government, and moreover when he was on the eve of great operations, ... for he was now preparing to pass the Adour.
♦Suchet fails in an attempt to surprise a British corps. December.♦