ities of civilised war had long been
abolished; and the prisoners were sure to be employed against the
captors who spared them. Bonchamps gave these men their lives, and on
the same day he died. When, at the same moment, d'Elbee, Lescure and
Bonchamps had disappeared, La Rochejaquelein assumed the command,
Kleber, whom he repulsed at Laval, described him as a very able
officer; but he led the army into the country beyond the Loire without
a definite purpose. The Prince de Talmond, who was a La Tremoille,
promised that when they came near the domains of his family, the
expected Bretons would come in. More important was the appearance of
two peasants carrying a stick. For the peasants were _emigres_
disguised, and their stick contained letters from Whitehall, in which
Pitt undertook to help them if they succeeded in occupying a seaport;
and he recommended Granville, which stands on a promontory not far
from French Saint Michael's Mount. The messengers declined to confirm
the encouragement they brought; but La Rochejaquelein, heavily
hampered with thousands of women and children who had lost their
homes, made his way across to the sea, and attacked the fortifications
of the place. He assaulted in vain; and although Jersey listened to
the cannonade, no ships came. The last hope had now gone; and the
remnant of the great army, cursing the English, turned back towards
their own country. Some thousands of Bretons had joined, and Stofflet
still drove the republicans before him. With La Rochejaquelein and
Sapinaud he crossed the Loire in a small boat. The army found the
river impassable, and wandered helplessly without officers until, at
Savenay, December 26, it was overtaken by the enemy, and ceased to
exist. Lescure had followed the column in his carriage, until he heard
of the execution of the queen. With his last breath, he said: "I
fought to save her: I would live to avenge her. There must be no
quarter now."

In this implacable spirit Carrier was acting at Nantes. But I care not
to tell the vengeance of the victorious republicans upon the brave men
who had made them tremble. The same atrocities were being committed in
the south. Lyons had overthrown the Jacobins, had put the worst of
them to death, and had stood a siege under the republican flag.
Girondins and royalists, who were enemies at Nantes, fought here side
by side; and the place was so well armed that it held out to October
9. On the 29th of August, the royalists