In February, Dumouriez invaded Holland and was repulsed, and he then fell back to Brussels, not strong enough to march to Paris without support, it is true, but probably expecting to be strong enough as soon as the Vendean insurrection came to a head.

During the Vendean war, this town became, at different periods, the victim of either party as they were successful; and it suffered severely.

This place is celebrated in the history of the Vendean war by the refuge Madame de Laroche-Jaquelin sought there, after the deplorable defeat of the royalist army at the battle of Mans, where it received its death-blow.

The whole of this country north of the Loire, from Rennes to Nantes, the triangular point resting upon Angers, is the country of the Chouans, which it is necessary, in reference to the Vendean war, to distinguish from the country south of the Loire, in the department of the Loire Inférieure, called le Bocage, or la Vendée.

The numbers that were destroyed during the Revolution, or, as the French emphatically term it, "Le régne de la Terreur," were never ascertained; but the frightful history of that bloody period would probably justify the computation at half the number of its present population, many having fallen victims to the murders that were termed "Noyades," independent of those who perished in the Vendean war.

The spot where the gallant Charette was shot, with several other leaders of the Vendean army, is shown; and in the cemetery, a large mound of earth marks the place where the bodies were thrown in, at the time of the "Fuzillades" when the infamous Carrier presided at the execution of the brave Royalists.

"] During the Vendean war, the royalists had been driven out of Clisson by the republicans, under the command of a ferocious jacobin.

The historian of that period, speaking of the entrance to this tower, observes, in reference to the cruelties committed there in the Vendean war: "Il existait au milieu de la dernière cour un très beau puits, taillé dans le roc et

The Vendean, carrying his musket in a bandoleer, and leaning upon a long pole, leaped from one bank to the other with amazing facility.

The republican soldier to whom this mode of fighting was unknown, was obliged to be continually upon his guard, to march along the shores of the canals, and to follow slowly their circuitous track, supporting at the same time frequent skirmishes, while it took him several hours to traverse a space which the Vendean commonly accomplished in a few minutes.

The Vendean when perceived, would either hide or break his gun, and in surrendering his life, seldom left his weapon.

[Illustration] After the defeat of the Vendean army, and their retreat across the Loire at this place, says a French writer, "There were seen upon the right bank, following the army, which increased prodigiously, a multitude of bishops, priests, monks, religious persons, old countesses, baronesses, &c. &c. who were carried off by cart-loads, and which did nothing but embarrass the army.

In truth, the soldiers almost equally disliked the latter, who had served only in the Vendean bands of Saint Pol de Leon.

From the opening chapter down to the very close, even while the interlude takes us for a little while to the Paris café where Danton, Robespierre, and Marat sit in angry counsel, even while we are on the sea with the royalist Marquis and Halmalo, the reader is subtly haunted by the great Vendean woods, their profundity, their mystery, their tragic and sinister beauties.

With La Vendée for background, and some savage incidents of the bloody Vendean war for external machinery, Victor Hugo has realised his conception of '93 in three types of character: Lantenac, the royalist marquis; Cimourdain, the puritan turned Jacobin; and Gauvain, for whom one can as yet find no short name, he belonging to the millenarian times.

[Footnote 1: In corroboration of this view of the Vendean rising as democratic, see Mortimer-Ternaux, Hist.

Son of a Vendean mother, he had been in early life a fervent royalist, and even in 1830 he could write of the fallen royal family with respectful sympathy.

The vengeance of Vendean men in many a province stern!

The second inaccuracy consists in stating that General Beaupuy died on the banks of the Loire during the Vendean war.

In the Vendean war, the "Mayençais," or soldiers returned from Mayence, made themselves conspicuous, and bore almost all the brunt of the campaign.

In this battle he fought hand to hand with and overcame a Vendean cavalier.

After this battle, which put an end to the great Vendean war, he wrote the following letter to his friend Merlin de Thionville, the celebrated "représentant du peuple.