night-lamp, with this motto: "Rest tranquilly; La Vendee is watching."
On the 3d of July, she visited the Champ des Mattes, where in 1815 the
Marquis Louis de La Rochejaquelein was killed at the head of the
Vendeans in insurrection against Napoleon. The same day she was at
Bourbon-Vendee. The 5th of July, at the crossing of the Quatre Chemins,
in sight of the roads from Nantes, from Bourbon, from Saumur, and from
La Rochelle, she laid the first stone of a monument to perpetuate the
memory of the Vendean victories. She returned afterward to the Chateau
de Mesnard, the property of her first equerry, the one who traced so
well the itinerary of her journey. All the inhabitants of the bourg of
Mesnard had taken part in the great Vendean war, and, their cure at
their head, marched as far as Granville. The mother of the first
equerry, then a widow, and whose two sons were in the army of Conde,
had followed her former peasants, with her daughter, and died at
Lagrande at the time of the disastrous retreat. Madame de la
Rochejaquelein, in her Memoirs, speaks of the sad state in which she
saw her. In memory of so much devotion, Madame wished to open a bal
champetre with a veteran of the bourg of Mesnard.
That night the Princess slept at the Chateau of Landebaudiere,
belonging to Count Auguste de La Rochejaquelein. Everywhere the
villagers came to the gates of the chateaux to enlist in their joys as
formerly they had enlisted in their combats,--Lescure, La
Rochejaquelein, d'Elbee, Charette. The 6th, Madame visited the field of
the battle of Torfou. A former officer of the army of La Vendee, noting
that she wore a green riding-habit, said to her: "We were always
attached to our uniform, but we cherish it more than ever to-day, when
we see that we wear the colors of Madame."--"Gentlemen," replied the
Princess, "I have adopted your uniform." She breakfasted in the open
air, amid the Vendeans under arms.
Madame continued her journey on horseback. Nothing could stop her,
neither oppressive heat nor rain-storms. When she was spoken to of her
fatigues, "It is only fair," she responded, "that I should give myself
a little trouble to make the acquaintance of those who have shed their
blood for us." Most of the time she took her repast in the open air.
The peasants strolled around the table and fired salutes with their old
muskets; for in Vendee there is no fete without powder. Then to the
sound of the biniou and of the veze they moved
|