But gleams of gladness through my gloom their soothing radiance dart, And my sighs are hushed, my tears are dried, when I turn t what thou art! Pure as the snow-flake ere it falls and takes the stain of earth, The War in Ea Vendée. TEFFREY. [THE events of this terrible war of the French Revolution have been detailed with singular animation in Lord Jeffrey's Review of the Memoirs of the Mar. quise de Larochejaquelein. We pass over the early successes of the insurgents, to give the afflicting narrative of their final discomfiture.] The last great battle was fought near Chollet, where the insurgents, after a furious and sanguinary resistance, were at last borne down by the multitude of their opponents, and driven down into the low country on the banks of the Loire. M. de Bonchamp, who had always held out the policy of crossing this river, and the advantages to be derived from uniting themselves to the royalists of Brittany, was mortally wounded in this battle; but his counsels still influenced their proceedings in this emergency; and not only the whole débris and wreck of the army, but a great proportion of the men and women and children of the country, flying in consternation from the burnings and butchery of the government forces, flocked down in agony and despair to the banks of this great river. On gaining the heights of St Florent, one of the most mournful, and at the same time most magnificent, spectacles burst upon the eye. Those heights form a vast semicircle; at the bottom of which a broad bare plain extends to the edge of the water. Near a hundred thousand unhappy souls now blackened over that dreary expanse,- old men, infants, and women, iningled with the half-armed soldiery, caravans, crowded baggage waggons, and teams of oxen, all full of despair, impatience, anxiety, and terror. Behind were the smokes of their burning villages, and the thunder of the hostile artillery ;—before, the broad stream of the Loire, divided by a long low island, also covered by the fugitives-twenty frail barks plying in the stream —and, on the far banks, the disorderly movements of those who had effected the passage, and were waiting there to be rejoined by their companions. Such, Madame de Lescure assures us,* was the tumult and terror of the scene, and so awful the recollections it inspired, that it can never be effaced from the memory of any of those who beheld it; and that many of its awe-struck spectators have concurred in stating that it brought forcibly to their imaginations the unspeakable terrors of the great Day of Judgment! Through this dismayed and bewildered multitude, the disconsolate family of their gallant general made their way silently to the shore ;-M. de L. stretched, almost insensible, on a wretched litter,-his wife, three months gone with child, walking by his side-and, behind her, her faithful nurse, with her helpless and astonished infant in her arms. When they arrived on the beach, they with difficulty got a crazy boat to carry them to the island; but the aged monk who steered it would not venture to cross the larger branch of the stream-and the poor wounded man was obliged to submit to the agony of another removal. M. de Bonchamp died as they were taking him out of the boat; and it became necessary to elect another commander. M. de L. roused himself to recommend Henri de Larochejaquelein, and he was immediately appointed. When the election was announced to him, M. de L. desired to see and congratulate his valiant cousin. He was already weeping over him in a dark corner of the room, and now came to express his hopes that he should soon be superseded by his recovery, "No," said M. de L., "that I believe, is out of the question: but, even if I were to recover, I should never take the place you have now * Afterwards Larochejaquelein. obtained, and should be proud to serve as your aide-de-camp.' The day after they advanced towards Rennes. M. de L. could find no other conveyance than a baggage waggon; at every jolt of which he suffered such anguish as to draw forth the most piercing shrieks, even from his manly bosom. After some time an old chaise was discovered: a piece of artillery was thrown away to supply it with horses, and the wounded general was laid in it -his head being supported in the lap of Agatha, his mother's faithful waiting-woman, and now the only attendant of his wife and infant. In three painful days they reached Laval;— Madame de L. frequently suffering from absolute want, and sometimes getting nothing to eat the whole day but one or two sour apples. M. de L. was nearly insensible during the whole journey. He was roused but once, when there was a report that a party of the enemy were in sight. He then called for his musket, and attempted to get out of the carriage, addressed ex hortations and reproaches to the troops that were flying around him, and would not rest till an officer in whom he had confidence came up and restored some order to the detachment. The alarm turned out to be a false one. At Laval they halted for several days; and he was so much recruited by the repose, that he was able to get for half an hour on horseback, and seemed to be fairly in the way of recovery, when his excessive zeal, and anxiety for the good behaviour of the troops, tempted him to premature exertions, from the consequences of which he never afterwards recovered. The troops being all collected and refreshed at Laval, it was resolved to turn upon their pursuers, and give battle to the advancing army of the republic. The conflict was sanguinary, but ended most decidedly in favour of the Vendeans. The first encounter was in the night, and was characterised with more than the usual confusion of night attack. The two armies crossed each other in so extraordinary a manner, that the artillery of each was supplied, for a part of the battle, from the caissons of the enemy; and one of the Vendean leaders, after exposing himself to great hazard in helping a brother officer, as he took him to be, out of a ditch, discovered, by the next flash of the cannon, that it was an enemy-and immediately cut him down. After daybreak the battle became more orderly, and ended in a complete victory. This was the last grand crisis of the insurrection. The way to La Vendée was once more open; and the fugitives had it in their power to return triumphant to their fastnesses and their homes, after rousing Brittany by the example of their valour and success. M. de L. and Henri both inclined to this course; but other counsels prevailed. Some were for marching on to Nantes-others for proceeding to Rennes --and some, more sanguinary than the rest, for pushing directly for Paris. Time was irretrievably lost in these deliberations; and the republicans had leisure to rally, and bring up their reinforcements, before anything was definitively settled. In the meantime, M. de L. became visibly worse; and one morning, when his wife alone was in the room, he called her to him, and told her that he felt his death was at hand;—that his only regret was for leaving her in the midst of such a war, with a helpless child, and in a state of pregnancy. For himself, he added, he died happy, and with humble reliance on the Divine mercy ;— but her sorrow he could not bear to think of;-and he entreated her pardon for any neglect or unkindness he might ever have shown her. He added many other expressions of tenderness and consolation; and, seeing her overwhelmed with anguish at the despairing tone in which he spoke, concluded by saying that he might perhaps be mistaken in his prognosis; and hoped still to live for her. Next day they were under the necessity of moving forward; and, on the journey, he learned accidentally from one of the officers the dreadful details of the queen's execution, which his wife had been at great pains to keep from his knowledge. This intelligence seemed to bring back his fever,—though he still spoke of living to avenge her. "If I do live," he said, "it shall now be for vengeance only-no more mercy from me!" That evening, Madame de L., entirely overcome with anxiety and fatigue, had fallen into a deep sleep on a mat before his bed: and, soon after, his condition became altogether desperate. He was now speechless, and nearly insensible;-the sacraments were administered, and various applications made, without awaking the unhappy sleeper by his side. Soon after midnight, however, she started up, and instantly became aware of the full extent of her misery. To fill up its measure, it was announced in the course of the morning that they must immediately resume their march with the last division of the army. The thing appeared altogether impossible; Madame de L. declared she would rather die by the hands of the republicans, than permit her husband to be moved in the condition in which he then was. When she recollected, however, that these barbarous enemies had of late not only butchered the wounded that fell into their power, but mutilated and insulted their remains, she submitted to the alternative, and prepared for this miserable journey with a heart bursting with anguish. The dying man was roused only to heavy moaning by the pain of lifting him into the carriage-where his faithful Agatha again supported his head, and a surgeon watched all the changes of his condition. Madame de L. was placed on horseback; and, surrounded by her father and mother, and a number of officers, went forward, scarcely conscious of anything that was passing -only that sometimes in the bitterness of her heart, when she saw the dead bodies of the republican soldiers on the road, she made her horse trample upon them as if in vengeance for the slaughter of her husband. In the course of little more than an hour, she thought she heard some little stir in the carriage, and insisted upon stopping to inquire into the cause. The officers, however, crowded around her; and then her father came up and said that M. de L. was in the same state as before, but that he suffered dreadfully from the cold, and would be very much distressed if the door was again to be opened. Obliged to be satisfied with this answer, she went on in a sullen and gloomy silence for some hours longer, in a dark and rainy day of November. It was night when they reached the town of Fougères; and, when lifted from her horse at the gate, she was unable either to stand or walk: she was carried into a wretched house, crowded with troops of all descriptions, where she waited two hours in agony till she heard that the carriage with M. de L. had come up. She was |