All Chapters of Ninety-Three: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

83 Chapters

MEN.

The peasant has confidence in the field that nourishes him, no less than in the wood that serves to hide him. It is no easy matter to conceive an idea of the forests of Brittany. They were cities in themselves. Nothing could be more secret, more silent, or more impenetrable than those tangled thickets of briers and branches offering shelter, repose, and silence. No solitude could seem more death-like and sepulchral; if one could, like a flash of lightning, have felled the entire forest at a single stroke, a swarm of human beings would have stood forth revealed within those shades.Concealed on the outside by coverings of stones and branches were wells, round and narrow, sinking at first vertically and then horizontally, widening under the ground like funnels, and ending in dark chambers. Wells like these discovered by Westermann in Brittany were also found in Egypt by Cambyses,—with this difference, that while the Egyptian caves in the desert held dead men only, those in the forests o

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CONNIVANCE OF MEN AND FORESTS.

Thus the tragic forests of Brittany once more resumed their ancient rôle of servant and accomplice to revolution.The subsoil of such a forest was like a madrepore pierced and intersected in all directions by a secret labyrinth of mines, cells, and galleries. Each of these hidden cells was large enough to shelter five or six men; the only difficulty was in breathing. Certain mysterious ciphers have been preserved that give us a clew to this powerful organization of the peasant rebellion. In Ille-et-Vilaine, in the forest of Pertre, where the Prince de Talmont had taken refuge, not a breath could be heard, not a trace of human life was visible; and yet Focard had there mustered six thousand men. In Morbihan, in the forest of Meulac, not a man of all the eight thousand there was to be seen. These two forests, le Pertre and Meulac, are not, however, to be reckoned among the great Breton forests. It would have been dangerous walking over their explosive soil. These treacherous copses, wit

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THEIR LIFE UNDER GROUND.

The men, wearied of living in these beasts' lairs, would sometimes venture to come out by night and dance on the neighboring moor; or else they said prayers, by way of killing time. "Jean Chouan made us say our beads from morning till night," says Bourdoiseau.It was almost impossible, when the season arrived, to prevent the men of Bas-Maine from going to the Fête de la Gerbe. They clung to their own ideas. Tranche-Montagne says that Denys disguised himself as a woman, to go to the play at Laval; after which he returned to his den.All at once they would rush out in search of death, changing one tomb for another.Sometimes they would lift the cover of their grave and listen for any chance sounds of battle in the distance, following it with their ears, guided by the steady fire of the Republicans and the intermittent shots of the Royalists. When the platoon-firing suddenly ceased, they knew that the Royalists had lost the day; but if the scattering shots continued, receding into the

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THEIR LIFE IN WARFARE.

Many of them had nothing but pikes; but good hunting-rifles were plentiful, and no marksmen were more expert than the poachers of the Bocage and the smugglers of Loroux. They were eccentric, terrible, and intrepid fighters. The proclamation of a decree to levy three hundred thousand men was the signal for ringing the tocsin in six hundred villages. The flames burst forth in all directions at once. Poitou and the Anjou revolted on the same day. Let us remark that the first rumbling was heard on the 8th of July, 1792, a month previous to the 10th of August, on the moor of Kerbader. Alain Redeler, whose name is now forgotten, was the forerunner of La Rochejaquelein and Jean Chouan. The Royalists forced all able-bodied men to march, under penalty of death. They confiscated harnesses, wagons, and provisions. Sapinaud at once assembled three thousand soldiers, Cathelineau ten thousand, Stofflet twenty thousand, and Charette took possession of Noirmoutier. The Viscount de Scépeaux roused the

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THE SOUL OF THE EARTH PASSES INTO MAN.

The number of the rebels in the Vendée, including men, women, and children, cannot be estimated at less than five hundred thousand. Tuffin de la Rouarie states the sum total of the combatants to have been half a million.The federalists helped them, and the Vendée had the Gironde on its side also. Lozère sent thirty thousand men into the Bocage. Eight departments formed a coalition: five in Brittany, three in Normandy. Évreux, who fraternized with Caen, was represented in the rebellion by Chaumont, its mayor, and Gardembas, a man of note. Buzot, Gorsas, and Barbaroux at Caen, Brissot at Moulins, Chassan at Lyons, Rabaut-Saint-Étienne at Nismes, Meillan and Duchâtel in Brittany, all fanned the flames of the furnace. There were two Vendées,—the great army fighting in the forests, and the smaller one carrying on the war in the bushes. And this marks the difference between Charette and Jean Chouan. The little Vendée was simple-minded and true; the great Vendée was corrupt. The little Vend

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PLUS QUAM CIVILIA BELLA.

The summer of 1792 had been a very rainy one; but that of 1793 was so extremely warm that, although the civil war had gone far towards ruining the roads in Brittany, the people—thanks to the fine weather—were able to travel from place to place, for a dry soil makes the best road.At the close of a clear July day, about an hour after sunset, a man on horseback, riding from the direction of Avranches, stopped before the little inn called the Croix-Blanchard, situated at the entrance of Pontorson. For some years its sign had borne the following inscription: "Good cider obtained here." The day had been a very warm one, but now the wind was beginning to rise.The traveller was wrapped in an ample cloak that fell over his horse's back. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, ornamented with a tricolored cockade, which was rather a bold thing to do in a country like this, with its hedges and sharpshooting, for which a cockade offered an excellent target. The cloak fastened around his neck was pushed b

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DOL.

Dol, a Franco-Spanish city in Brittany, as the old records call it, is not really a city; it is a street,—a grand old Gothic street, with rows of houses supported by pillars on both sides of it. These houses are not built in straight lines, but stand irregularly, now and then elbowing into the street, which is, to be sure, a very wide one. The rest of the town is a mere network of lanes, all leading into this great diametrical street,—emptying into it, one might say, like streams into a river, with Mont-Dol towering above it. The city, with neither gates nor walls, could not have withstood a siege; but the street was quite capable of sustaining one. The houses, like promontories, which but fifty years ago were still standing, and the two pillared galleries bordering the street, made it a strong and well-nigh impregnable redoubt. Each of the houses was a fortress in itself, and the enemy would have found himself forced to capture them one by one. Almost in the middle of the street stood

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SMALL ARMIES AND GREAT BATTLES.

On their arrival at Dol, the peasants, as we have seen, had dispersed through town, each man guided by his own fancy, as it often happens when "on obéit d'amitié," as the Vendeans expressed it,—a form of obedience that may produce heroes, but not well-disciplined soldiers. They had stored their artillery, together with the baggage, under the arches of the old market, and feeling weary, when they had eaten and drunk and said their beads, they stretched themselves out in the middle of the principal street, that was encumbered rather than guarded. As night came on most of them fell asleep, pillowing their heads on their knapsacks, some having their wives beside them; for it often happened that the peasant women followed the men. In the Vendée, women about to become mothers frequently acted as spies. It was a mild July night The constellations shone forth against the deep-blue sky. The entire bivouac, which might have been mistaken for the halt of a caravan rather than for a military encam

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A SECOND TIME.

They had won the victory, and, turning to the men of the battalion of the Bonnet-Rouge, Gauvain exclaimed,—"Though you are but twelve, you are equal to a thousand."One word from the chief in times like these was as good as the cross of honor.Guéchamp, who had been sent by Gauvain outside the city in pursuit of the fugitives, captured many of them.Torches were lighted, and the town was searched.All those who had not been able to escape, surrendered themselves. The principal street, illuminated by pots-à-feu, was strewn with the dead and the wounded. The fierce struggle that always terminates a battle was still continued by a few groups of desperate fighters, who, however, on being surrounded, threw down their arms and surrendered.Gauvain had observed amid the wild tumult of the flight a fearless man, vigorous and agile as a faun, who stood his own ground while covering the flight of the others. This peasant, after handling his musket like an expert, alternately firing: and R

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A DROP OF COLD WATER.

It was many a year since last they met, but their hearts had never been separated, and they knew each other again as if they had parted but yesterday.A hospital had been improvised in the town hall of Dol, and Cimourdain was placed on a bed in a small room adjoining the large hall devoted to the other wounded men. The surgeon who had sewed up his wound put a stop to all exciting conversation between the two men, considering it wiser to leave Cimourdain to sleep. Besides, Gauvain was called away by the thousand duties and cares incident to victory. Cimourdain was left alone, but he could not sleep, excited as he was by the double fever of his wound and of his joy.He knew he was not sleeping, and yet he hardly felt sure that he was awake. Could it be possible that his dream had come to pass? Cimourdain was one of those men who have no faith in good luck, and yet it had fallen to his lot. He had found Gauvain. He had left him a child, he found him a man,—a grand, brave, awe-inspiring

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