Chapter VIII

Le Bocage--Its deep lanes and hedges--The Chouan
tactics--Vendean horses and riders--Vendean politics--The
Marquis de la Bretèche and his farmers--The means I
suggested to prevent a fresh Chouannerie--The tottering
stone--I leave la Jarrie--Adieux to my guide

I have of course put on one side as well as I could, until now, particulars relating to statistics and the topography of the country; but one must come to it eventually. On the outskirts of Tiffanges, la Vendée is first seen with its undulating country, which proved so disastrous to us in the Chouan War.

Let me be permitted to reproduce here a part of the report which I submitted to General La Fayette on my return to Paris, which report, as will be seen later, was also submitted to the inspection of King Louis-Philippe:--

"... In the first place, the word _Vendée_, politically
speaking, comprises a much larger area of ground than it
does topographically. And this was because the name of a
single department christened a war which was really spread
over four departments. So, under the collective name
of Vendée the departments of Maine-et-Loire, Morbihan,
Deux-Sèvres and la Vendée were all included. No other part
of France at all resembles la Vendée; it is a country
quite unique. But few main roads pass through it. I will
speak further of them in due course. The other means of
communication--and, consequently, those of commerce--consist
of lanes of between four and five feet in width, edged on
either side by steep banks, crowned by a quickset hedge
trimmed to the height of a man, and at every twenty yards
stand oak trees whose interlacing branches form an arbour
over the road. Hedges bounding private fields intersect them
at right angles here and there, thus forming enclosed spaces
which hardly ever consist of more than one or two acres,
always of an oblong shape. Each of these hedges has only
one opening, called _échalier_, which is sometimes a kind of
gate like those which enclose sheep-folds; more frequently
it is made out of wood from the hedges themselves, and,
set in the hedge, it does not look any different from the
hedges themselves to the eye of a stranger, especially
in winter. The native of the country will make straight
for this hurdle, which he knows, but other persons have
generally to go along all four sides of the fields before
they can discover the way out. These hedges thoroughly
explain the tactics employed in the Vendean War: to shoot
accurately without being seen; to fly when the shot has
been fired through the opening without the risk of being
hit. Besides, with the exception of la Rochejaquelein's
fine harangue: 'If I advance, follow; if I retreat, kill
me; if I die, avenge me!' the leaders hardly ever uttered
any other words before battle than the simpler and indeed
clearer ones to the peasantry: 'Egayez-vous, mes gars!'
which meant, 'Make yourselves scarce, my lads!' Then each
copse would conceal a man with his gun--before, behind, on
each side of the advancing army; the hedges would blaze
forth, bullets whistle past one another and soldiers fall
before they had time to discover from what side the storm of
fire was coming! Finally, tired of seeing their dead lying
in heaps at the bottom of these defiles, the Blues would
rush off in each direction, climb the bank, scale the hedges
and, losing half of their men in the process, would arrive
at the top, only to see a sudden cessation of the firing:
everything had disappeared as by magic, and nothing could
be seen, far or near, but a country as prettily mapped out
as an English garden, and here and there a sharp-pointed
slate-roofed tower, piercing the misty western skies, or
the red roof of a farmhouse standing out against a green
background of oaks, beeches and walnut trees. These lanes
or, properly speaking, defiles, which at first sight appear
only to have been hollowed out by the hoofs of oxen, are
natural staircases formed by the inequalities of the ground,
over which only the little horses of the country can
walk surefooted. We must say a little about these horses
and the manner of driving them. In summer the lanes are
picturesque enough, but in winter they are impracticable,
as the slightest rainfall turns each of them into the bed
of a torrent, and then, for nearly four months of the year,
communication is established by foot and across country. But
let us return to the horses. The cleverest riding-master in
Franconi's would find himself at a disadvantage, I believe,
if he were perched up on one of the huge Breton saddles,
which rise out of the middle of the animal's back like a
dromedary's hump. And as to the animal himself, the rider
might imagine he could guide him by the help of bridle and
knees; but he would very quickly find out that the legs of
the Vendean rider are only used for preserving his balance,
and that the bridle is of no use except to pull his mount up
short by reining him in hard with both hands. After a little
practice, however, he would learn to assist himself with
the cudgel, and this it is which takes the place in Breton
horsemanship of the use of one's knees and the bridle. In
order to turn the horse to the right you must hit him over
the left ear with the cudgel, and _vice versâ_; and in this
manner, which simplifies the art of the Larives and the
Pelliers enormously, one guides the animal by roads that
would turn a Basque dizzy!

"This picture, however, of the lanes and riders who frequent
them, is beginning to change in the departments of la Vendée
and of the Loire-Inférieure, where Bonaparte had roads
cut; but it is still correct as regards the department
of Deux-Sèvres and especially the southern half of the
department of Maine-et-Loire.

"It is in these latter portions of the country, therefore,
that the Vendean politicians took shelter. There, the
opposition to any form of Liberal government is energetic
and flagrant. Happily, as if in defiance, civilisation
has surrounded them with a girdle of Liberal townships,
which starts from Bourbon Vendée, crosses Chollet, Saumur
and Angers, reappears at Nantes and even runs over into
la Vendée itself, at Clisson, which is a sort of forlorn
outpost from whence alarm could be given in case of a
rising. A single road passes through this country at one
corner, in the shape of a Y; the tail standing for the route
from Chollet to Trémentines, and the two forks, those from
Trémentines to Angers and Saumur--this latter road is not
even a posting route. La Vendée, then, consists nowadays of
a single department, without exit for attack or flight.

"Four very distinct classes of individuals are active in
the midst of this political furnace: the nobles or _gros_,
the clergy, the bourgeoisie and the peasantry or leasehold
farmers.

"The nobility is entirely opposed to any form of
constitutional system; its influence is practically evil
with the bourgeoisie, but it has immense influence over the
tenant farmers who are nearly all in its pay. For instance,
here is a case in point: the Marquis of la Bretèche alone
possesses one hundred and four farmsteads; suppose each
farm contains merely three men capable of handling a gun,
one word from him will bring into action three hundred and
twelve armed peasants!

"The clergy share the opinions of the nobles and have a
greater influence still through their pulpits and the
confessional.

"The bourgeoisie are, therefore, the interior of the
triangle formed by the nobility, which lays down its laws,
the clergy who preach them and the people who accept them.

"So the proportion of Liberals in this department (I am
referring to the interior) is scarcely one to fifteen: the
tricolour flag is nowhere to be seen, in spite of the formal
order of the prefect; and the priests will not chant the
_Domine salvum_ except under special command of the bishop.

"The pole to which the white flag was affixed still exists,
and by its very nakedness acts as a protest against the
tricolour flag; but the priests recommend from their
pulpits that Louis-Philippe should be prayed for, _as he
must inevitably be assassinated._ So the agitation goes on
incessantly. It is upheld by meetings of from forty to fifty
nobles, which take place once or twice a week, either at
Lavoirs, or at Herbiers, or at Combouros. The means they
make use of for exciting the people is the withholding of
newspapers, which are only brought by specially appointed
agents, the post only passing through Beaupréau, Chemillé
and Chollet. Among the towns and villages which make no
kind of secret of their hopes of another insurrection
must be reckoned, first and foremost, those of Beaupréau,
Montfaucon, Chemillé, Saint-Macaire, le May and Trémentines.
The heart of the Royalist revolution is centred at
Montfaucon; were it extinguished throughout the whole of
France, the pulse of civil war would still beat here. A
revolution would infallibly break out if the dauphin or
Madame appeared among the people, or even on a day when war
should be declared between France and any foreign power,
specially if that power were to be England, and if, for the
third time, it were to pour men and arms along the coast,
which is only from ten to eleven leagues' distance from the
department of Maine-et-Loire, where it is an easy matter
to smuggle men and weapons in through the opening between
Clisson and Chollet.

"The following seem to us to be the best means of preventing
an insurrection:--

"I. To make roads. Generally people only see in a road
formed right across an impracticable country facility
offered for the extension of commerce. The Government, if of
liberal views, sees it as a political means to its own end;
civilisation follows commerce, and liberty civilisation.
Relations with other departments will deprive the one to be
feared of its primitive wildness; reliable information will
quickly spread and false reports be as quickly disproved;
post-offices will be opened in all the chief towns of the
district; the gendarmerie will be established in regular and
active service; then, finally, troops will, in case of need,
be marched all over the district in an impressive manner.
The roads to be made in the department of Maine-et-Loire
should run from Palet to Montfaucon, passing through
Saint-Crespin. At Montfaucon the road should branch off into
two, one going to Beaupréau by la Renaudiére, Villedieu
and la Chapelle-au-Genêt; the other should proceed as far
as Romagne, where it should rejoin the one from Chollet
via la Jarrie and Roussay. The commerce that would spring
up along these roads would be in Anjou wines, Bretagne
cattle and the linens of Chollet. At the present time it
can only be carried on by means of ox waggons which do
not overturn, but which, by reason of the bad roads, have
to be drawn by a team of eight or ten beasts for a single
carriage very slightly loaded; or else goods are carried
on the backs of men. These roads should be made by the
workmen of the country itself, so as to distribute money
among the poor classes; for the peasants know the places
where the best road metal can be obtained; also because the
nobles, whose positive intention it is to oppose the opening
of such roads, would easily rouse the peasantry againt
strange workmen, who would draw pay that the natives would
regard as their own legitimate due; because, finally, the
peasants chosen to make these roads would themselves oppose
any attempts on the part of the nobility to prevent their
execution.

"2. To transfer into villages across the Loire ten or twelve
priests, raising their stipends some hundred francs or so
to prevent them posing as martyrs--especially those from
Tiffanges, Montauban, Torfou and Saint-Crespin. To send
into the parishes in their place priests whom the Government
can safely trust. These priests would have nothing to fear;
their sacred office would protect them from the peasants,
who might detest them as men, but would respect their
cassocks.

"3. A large proportion of the nobles who meet together
to discuss the means for renewing civil war enjoy very
considerable pensions, which the Government continues paying
them; nothing would be easier than to catch them in the very
act, and then the Government could justifiably cease paying
these pensions, and divide the money in equal proportions
between the old Vendean and Republican soldiers, whose
mutual hatred would gradually die down as quarter days
succeeded one another.

"In this way, there would in the future be no possibility
of fresh Vendean risings, since on the slightest outbreak
the Government would only have to stretch out its arm and to
scatter troops along the main roads to separate gatherings.

"If people think that these men, enlightened in their views
since 1792, have reached the point of never rising again
under the influence of fanaticism and superstition, they are
strangely mistaken; even those that Bonaparte's conscription
drew from their homes and took away out into the world have
gradually lost their temporary enlightenment since they
returned to their hearths again and resumed their primitive
ignorance. I will cite one instance of this. I went shooting
with a fine old soldier who had served a dozen years under
Napoleon. On the slope of a hill near la Jarrie a stone
was standing a dozen feet high that was in the shape of an
inverted cone, touching the mountain by one of its upper
edges and at its base, which was as narrow as the crown of
a hat, resting on a large boulder of rock; although this
stone weighed from seven and a half to ten tons, it was so
perfectly balanced that a man could easily shake it with
his hand. I thought it was a Druidical monument, but, not
trusting to the false teaching of educated men, which so
often is upset by the rude simplicity of peasants, I called
to my companion and asked him what this stone was and who
had put it there.

"'The devil!' he replied, with a conviction which did not
seem to fear the faintest denial on my side.

"'The devil, did you say?' I repeated, in astonishment.

"'Yes,' he replied.

"'But what did he do it for?'

"'You see from here the stream of la Maine ... over there
down in the bottom of the valley?'

"'Perfectly.'

"'Well, then, you can make out a spot where one could cross
it on stepping-stones which rise to the surface of the water
were it not that just in the middle of these stones there is
a gap.'

"'Yes.'

"'Well! that gap ought to be refilled by the rock we are now
leaning against.'

"'It is certainly hewn in such a way as to fit in exactly
and to dissipate the effect of want of continuity caused by
its absence.'

"'I do not follow what you mean,' replied the peasant; 'but
this is how it came about. The devil was building a bridge
on which to cross over the river in order to steal the
farmers' cows; he had finished it all but this one stone,
which he was carrying on his shoulder, forgetting that the
day he was going to finish his work was a Sunday, when, all
of a sudden, he caught sight of the procession from Roussay,
which also saw him. Whereat the priest made the sign of the
cross, and very soon Satan's strength began to go from him;
he was obliged to put the stone down here and for ever, just
where we are, as he never will be able to raise it again.
That is why the bridge is broken and why this stone shakes.'

"As this explanation was as good as any other, I was obliged
to be contented with it, since had I given him my own
version, it would probably have sounded as absurd to him as
his did to me."

At the end of six weeks, thanks to my guide, who accompanied me all over, I knew the country as well as, and perhaps even a good deal better than, one of its own inhabitants, both la Vendée of the past and la Vendée of the future. I said good-bye to Madame Villenave and her daughter, kissed little Élisa on her forehead and set off to Nantes. The company of my Vendean was unnecessary farther than Clisson, and I parted with him after trying to make him accept some reward for the services he had rendered me; but he obstinately refused, saying that, no matter what he had done or might still be able to do for me, he should be eternally my debtor. We embraced and I took my departure, but he stood where I left him, waving to me whenever I turned round. I lost sight of him round a corner, and all was ended between us. I do not know whether he is alive or dead, whether he has forgotten me or still keeps at the bottom of his heart that precious stone called gratitude, or whether he has cast it so far away from him that he will never be able to find it again. I reached Nantes an hour and a half after I left him.