There were two Vendées, Great Vendée, which carried on the forest war; and Little Vendée, which carried on the war of the thickets,—that was the slight difference which separated Charette from Jean Chouan, Little Vendée was innocent; Great Vendée was corrupt. Little Vendée was more important. Charette was made marquis, lieutenant-general of the king's armies and was decorated with the great cross of Saint Louis; Jean Chouan remained Jean Chouan. Charette inclined to the bandit, Jean Chouan was more of a knight-errant.

  As for those magnanimous chiefs, Bonchamps, Lescure, la Rochejaquelein, they were mistaken. The great Catholic army was a foolish attempt; disaster was inevitable. Can one imagine a tempest of peasants attacking Paris? a coalition of villages besieging the Panthéon? a pack of Christmas carols and orisons barking around the Marseillaise? a crowd of sabots rushing on a legion of intellects? Le Mans and Savenay punished this madness. It was impossible for la Vendée to pass the Loire. She could accomplish anything except this stride. Civil war does not conquer. Crossing the Rhine is the crowning work of Cæsar and the additional glory of Napoleon; crossing the Loire kills la Rochejaquelein.

  The true sphere of la Vendée is within her own boundaries, there she is more than invulnerable, she is intangible. The Vendéan at home is a smuggler, a farmer, soldier, shepherd, poacher, sharpshooter, goatherd, bellringer, peasant, spy, assassin, sacristan, wild beast of the woods.

  La Rochejaquelein is only Achilles; Jean Chouau is Proteus.

  La Vendée miscarried.

  Other revolts have been successful; the Swiss insurrection for example. There was this difference between a mountainous revolt like the Swiss, and a forest revolt like the Vendéan, that almost always because of the fatal influence of environment, the one is struggling for an ideal, and the other for prejudices. One soars, the other crawls. One fights for humanity; the other, for solitude. One desires liberty; the other, isolation. One defends the Commune; the other, the parish.—"Communism! Communism!" cried the heroes of Marat.—One has to do with precipices; the other, with quagmires. One is the man of torrents and foamy waters; the other, the man of stagnant puddles where fever lurks. The head of one is among the stars; that of the other, in the thicket. The one is on a summit; the other, in a shadow.

  Education arising from mountain tops and low lands is not the same.

  The mountain is a citadel; the forest, an ambuscade: one inspires boldness; the other, strategy. Antiquity placed the gods on pinnacles, and satyrs in grooves. The satyr is the savage; half man, half beast. Free countries have their Appenines, their Alps, their Pyrenees an Olympus. Parnassus is a mountain. Mont Blanc was the colossal auxiliary of William Tell; behind and above the great contests of spirits, against the darkness which fills the poems of India, the Himalayas are seen. Greece, Spain, Italy, Helvetia, have the mountain for a type; Cimmeria, Germany, or Brittany have the woods. The forest is barbarous.

  The formation of the ground affects many of man's actions. It is more of an accomplice than is realized. In sight of some wild landscapes, one is tempted to exonerate man, and incriminate creation; one feels the silent rebellion of nature; the desert is sometimes injurious to conscience, especially an unenlightened conscience; conscience may be gigantic, as with Jesus and Socrates; it may be dwarfed, as with Atreus and Judas. A small conscience quickly becomes reptile; the shady forest trees, the brambles, the thorns, the marshes under the branches, are a fatal habitation for it; it is mysteriously permeated there by evil persuasions. Optical illusions, inexplicable shadows, terrors of the hour or place, throw men into a sort of fear, half religious, half brutal, which in ordinary times engenders superstition, and in periods of violence, brutality. Hallucinations hold the torch which lights the path of murder. There is a touch of madness in the brigand. Wonderful nature has a double meaning, which dazzles great minds and blinds uncultivated souls. When man is ignorant, when the desert is filled with visions, the darkness of solitude is added to the darkness of intelligence; hence, in man, the possibilities of perdition.

  Certain rocks, certain ravines, certain copses, certain wild openings through the trees at evening, impel man to mad and awful deeds. One might almost say that there are evil places.

  What tragic deeds that gloomy hill between Baignon and Plélan has witnessed!

  Wide horizons lead the soul to broad ideas; circumscribed horizons engender narrow ideas; this sometimes condemns great hearts to become small minded: as, for example, Jean Chouan.

  Broad ideas hated by narrow ideas,—this is the very struggle of progress.

  Country, Fatherland,—these two words comprise the whole Vendéan war; a quarrel of the local idea with the universal idea; peasants against patriots.

  CHAPTER VII.

  LA VENDÉE WAS THE END OF BRITTANY.

  Brittany is an old rebel. Every time that it had revolted for two thousand years, it had been in the right; the last time it was in the wrong. Still, in reality, against the Revolution as against the monarchy, against the acting representatives as against the governing dukes and peers, against the assignats as against the subsidies, whoever the combatants might be, Nicolas Rapin, François de la Noue, Captain Pluviaut and Lady de la Garnache, or Stofflet, Coquereau, and Lechandelier de Pierreville, under Monsieur de Rohan against the king, and under Monsieur de La Rochejaquelein for the king, Brittany was always waging the same war,—the war of the local mind against the central mind.

  These ancient provinces were like a pond: these sluggish waters were averse to running; the winds blowing over them did not give them life, it irritated them. France ended at Finisterre; the field given to man terminated there, and there the march of generations stopped. Halt! cried the ocean to the earth, and barbarism to civilization. Every time that the centre, Paris, gives an impulse, whether it comes from royalty or the Republic, whether it be in the direction of despotism or liberty, it is a novelty and Brittany bristles. Let us be in peace. What do they want of us? The Marais takes its pitchfork, the Bocage takes its carbine. All our attempts, our initiative in legislation and education, our encyclopaedias, our philosophies, our geniuses, our glories, have come to naught before the Houroux; the tocsin in Bazouges threatens the French revolution, the moor of Faou revolts against our stormy public squares, and the bell of Haut-des Prés declares war on the tower of the Louvre.

  Terrible blunder.

  The Vendéan insurrection was a dismal mistake.

  A colossal skirmish, chicanery of Titans, boundless rebellion, destined to leave to history but a single word,—a word notorious and black; committing suicide for the absent, devoted to egoism, spending its time in offering great bravery to cowardice, without calculation, without stratagem, without tactics, without plan, without aim, without a chief, without responsibility; showing to what extent will can be powerless; chivalric and savage; absurdity in rut, building a parapet of shadows against the light; ignorance making a long, stupid, superb resistance to truth, justice, right, reason, and deliverance; the dismay of eight years, the ravage of fourteen departments, the devastation of fields, the destruction of crops, burning villages, ruining towns, pillaging houses, the massacre of women and children, a torch in the cottages, a sword in the hearts of the people, the terror of civilization, the hope of Pitt; such was this war,—an unconscious attempt at parricide.

  Taken all in all, by demonstrating the necessity of penetrating in every way the old Breton shadow and of piercing that thicket with all the arrows of light at once, la Vendée has been of service to progress. Catastrophes have a gloomy way of settling matters.

  BOOK SECOND.—THE THREE CHILDREN.

  CHAPTER I.

  PLUS QUAM CIVILIA BELLA.

  The summer of 1792 had been very rainy; the summer of 1793 was very hot. In consequence of the civil war, there were, so to speak, no roads in Brittany. People went about there, however, thanks to the beauty of the summer. The best route is dry ground.

  At the end of a serene July day, about an hour after sunset, a man on horseback, who came from the direction of Avranches, stopped before the little inn called the Croix-Branchard, at the entrance of Pontorson, and the sign of which bore this inscription, that was still legible a few years ago: "Good cider on draught." It had been hot all day, but the wind was beginning to blow.

  This traveller was wrapped in a wide cloak, which covered the horse's back. He wore a broad-brimmed hat with a tricolored cockade, a bold thing to do in this country of hedges and gunshots, where a cockade was a target. His cloak tied at the neck was thrown back to leave his arms free, and underneath was seen a tricolored belt and two pistols sticking out of the belt. A sabre hung down beyond the cloak.

  As the horse stopped, the door of the inn opened, and the innkeeper came out with a lantern in his hand. It was just between daylight and darkness; it was light on the road and dark in the house.

  The host looked at the cockade.

  "Citizen," said he, "do you stop here?"

  "No."

  "Where are you going then?"

  "To Dol."

  "In that case, return to Avranches or stay at Pontorson."

  "Why?"

  "Because they are fighting in Dol."

  "Ah!" said the cavalier.

  And he added,

  "Give some oats to my horse."

  The host brought a bucket, emptied a bag of oats into it and unbridled the horse, which began to snort and to eat.

  The conversation continued,—

  "Citizens, is this a horse of requisition?"

  "No."

  "Is it yours?"

  "Yes. I bought it and paid for it."

  "Where do you come from?"

  "From Paris."

  "Not directly?"

  "No."

  "I knew it, the roads are closed. But the post-wagon still runs."

  "As far as Alençon. I left it there."

  "Ah! soon there will be no more posts in France. There are no more horses. A horse worth three hundred francs brings six hundred, and fodder is high. I have been post-master, and now I keep a cook-shop. Out of thirteen hundred and thirteen post-masters, two hundred have resigned. Citizen, have you travelled under the new tariff?"

  "Of the first of May,—yes."

  "Twenty sous per post in a carriage, twelve sous in a cab, five sous in a wagon. Did you buy this horse at Alençon?"

  "Yes."

  "You have been riding all day, to-day?"

  "Since daybreak."

  "And yesterday?"

  "And the day before."

  "I see that. You came by way of Domfront and Mortain?"

  "And Avranches."

  "Take my advice and rest yourself, citizen. You must be tired. Your horse is."

  "Horses have a right to be tired, but men have not."

  The host fixed his eyes again on the traveller. He had a solemn, calm, stern face, framed in gray hair.

  The innkeeper glanced along the road, which was deserted as far as he could see, and said,—

  "And you are travelling alone like this?"

  "I have an escort."

  "Where is it?"

  "My sabre and my pistols."

  The innkeeper went to get a pail of water, and watered the horse, and while the horse was drinking, the host contemplated the traveller, and said to himself, "All the same, he looks like a priest."

  The cavalier continued,—

  "You say that they are fighting at Dol?"

  "Yes. It ought to be beginning this very minute."

  "Who are fighting?"

  "A ci-devant against a ci-devant."

  "What did you say?"

  "I say that a ci-devant who is for the Republic is fighting against a ci-devant who is for the king."

  "But there is no king now."

  "There is the little one. And the strange part of it is that the two ex-nobles are two relatives."

  The cavalier listened attentively. The innkeeper went on:

  "One is young, the other, old; it is a grand-nephew fighting against his great uncle. The uncle is a Royalist; the nephew, a patriot. The uncle commands the Whites, the nephew commands the Blues. Ah! they will give no quarter, be sure of that. It is war to the death."

  "To the death?"

  "Yes, citizen. Wait, would you like to see the polite speeches they throw at each other's heads? Here is a notice the old man found a way to have posted up everywhere, on all the houses and all the trees, and which he had stuck up even on my door."

  The host held his lantern near a square of paper fastened to one of the leaves of his double-door, and as the notice was in large letters, the cavalier was able to read from his horse,—

  "The Marquis de Lantenac has the honor to inform his grand-nephew, Monsieur the Viscount Gauvain, that if Monsieur le Marquis has the good fortune to capture his person, he will have Monsieur le Viscount quietly shot."

  "And," continued the innkeeper, here is the reply."

  He turned around and threw the light from his lantern on another notice posted opposite the first on the other leaf of the door. The traveller read,—

  "Gauvain warns Lantenac that if he takes him he will have him shot."

  "Yesterday," said the host; "the first placard was pasted up on my door, and this morning, the second. The reply was not long coming."

  The traveller, in an undertone, as if talking to himself, uttered these few words, which the innkeeper heard without taking in their full meaning,—

  "Yes, it is more than civil war, it is domestic war. It is necessary, and it is well. The great rejuvenations of peoples are at this price."

  And the traveller, raising his hand to his hat and fixing his eyes on the second notice, saluted it.

  The host continued,—

  "You see, citizen, this is how it is. In the cities and the large towns we are for the Revolution, in the country they are against it; that is to say, in the cities they are French, in the villages they are Breton. It is a war of bourgeois against the peasants. They call us boors, we call them clowns. The nobles and the priests are with them."

  "Not all," interrupted the cavalier.

  "Beyond a doubt, citizen, for we have here a viscount against a marquis."

  And he added in a low voice to himself,—

  "And I believe that I am speaking to a priest."

  The cavalier contmued,—

  "And which is winning?"

  "The viscount at present. But he has a hard time. The old man is terrible. These people belong to the family of Gauvain, nobles of this country here. It is a family with two branches; there is the large branch, the chief of which is called the Marquis de Lantenac, and the small branch, the chief of which is called the Viscount Gauvain. The two branches are now fighting. Such a thing is not seen among the trees, but it is seen among men. This Marquis de Lantenac is all-powerful in Brittany; among the peasants he is a prince. The day he landed he had eight thousand men in no time; in a week, three hundred parishes were raised. If he had been able to take a corner of the coast, the English would have landed. Fortunately, this Gauvain was there, who is his grand-nephew,—a strange occurrence. He is the Republican commander, and he repulsed his great-uncle. And, then, as luck would have it, this Lantenac, on bis arrival, while massacring a lot of prisoners, had caused two women to be shot, one of whom had three children who had been adopted by a battalion from Paris. That made them a terrible battalion. It was called the battalion of Bonnet-Rouge. There are not many of these Parisians left, but they are furious soldiers. They have been incorporated into Commandant Gauvain's division. Nothing withstands them. They are determined to avenge the death of the women, and have the children again. Nobody knows what the old man has done with these little things. That is what enrages the Parisian grenadiers. If these children had not been mixed up in it, I suppose this war would not be what it is. The viscount is a good, brave young man. But the old man is a terrible marquis. The peasants call it the war of Saint Michael against Beelzebub. You know, perhaps that Saint Michael is an angel of this part of the country. He has a mountain in the bay. He is said to have overthrown the devil and to have buried him under another mountain which is near here, and is called Tombelaine."

  "Yes," murmured the cavalier, "Tumba Beleni, the tomb of Belus, of Bel, of Belial, of Beelzebub."

  "I see that you know about it."

  And the host said, aside to himself,—

  "He knows Latin, and he is surely a priest."

  Then he added: "Well, citizen, for the peasants, it is that war over again. It is evident that to them Saint Michael is the Royalist general, and Beelzebub is the patriot commander; but if there is a devil, it is surely Lantenac, and if there is an angel it is Gauvain. Won't you take something, citizen?"

  "I have my gourd and a piece of bread. But you have not told me what is going on in Dol."

  "This is it. Gauvain is commanding the exploring column of the coast. Lantenac's aim was to rouse a general insurrection, to strengthen Lower Brittany with Lower Normandy, to open the doors to Pitt, and to increase the great Vendéan army with twenty thousand English and two hundred thousand peasants. Gauvain cut short this plan. He holds the coast, and is driving Lantenac into the interior and the English into the sea. Lantenac was here and he drove him away; he has taken Pont-au-Beau away from him, he has driven him from Avranches, he has driven him from Villedieu, he has prevented him from reaching Granville. He is manœuvring to drive him back into the forest of Fougères and to surround him there. All was going well yesterday. Gauvain was here with his column. Suddenly, there is an alarm. The old man, who is shrewd, makes a point; they learn that he is marching on Dol. If he takes Dol, and if he establishes a battery on Mont-Dol, for he has cannon, there is a point of the coast where the English can land, and all is lost. That is why, as there was not a minute to lose, Gauvain, who is a level-headed man, took counsel with no one but himself; did not ask for orders, nor wait for them, sounded the signal to saddle, put to his artillery, collected his troops, drew his sabre, and that is how, while Lantenac was rushing on Dol, Gauvain was rushing on Lantenac. It is at Dol, that these two Breton heads are going to butt. It will be a proud collision. They are there now."