e was not
duped by them; but he trusted them as safe men; and if they did their
work coarsely and cruelly, imitating the practice that succeeded so
well at Paris, it was no harm. That was a surer way of destroying
royalists _en masse_ than the manoeuvres of a tactician, who was
very likely to be humane, and almost sure to be ambitious and
suspicious of civilians. Therefore a succession of incompetent men
were sent out, and the star of d'Elbee ascended higher and higher.
There had been time for communication with Pitt, who was believed to
be intriguing everywhere, and the dread of an English landing in the
west became strong in the Committees of government at Paris.

At the end of July, a serious disaster befell the French armies. Mentz
surrendered to the Prussians, and Valenciennes immediately after to
the Austrians. Their garrisons, unable to serve against the enemy
abroad, were available against the enemy at home. The soldiers from
Mayence were sent to Nantes. They were 8000, and they brought Kleber
with them. It was the doom of La Vendee. By the middle of September
the best soldiers and the best generals the French government
possessed met the veterans of Bonchamps and d'Elbee. In a week, from
the 18th to the 23rd, they fought five battles, of which the most
celebrated is named after the village of Torfou. And with this
astonishing result, that the royalists were victorious in every one of
them, and captured more than 100 cannon. On one of these fields,
Kleber and Marceau saw each other for the first time. But it seemed
that Bonchamps was able to defeat even Kleber and Marceau, as he had
defeated Westermann and Rossignol. Then a strange thing happened. Some
men, in disguise, were brought into the Vendean lines. They proved to
be from the Mayence garrison; and they said that they would prefer
serving under the royalist generals who had beaten them, rather than
under their own unsuccessful chiefs. They undertook, for a large sum
of money, to return with their comrades. Bonchamps and Charette took
the proposals seriously, and wished to accept them. But the money
could only be procured by melting down the Church plate, and the
clergy made objection. Some have thought that this was a fatal
miscalculation. The other causes of their ruin are obvious and are
decisive. They ought to have been supported by the Bretons, and the
Bretons were not ready. They ought to have been united, and they were
bitterly divided and insubordi