subdue
them."

"Fully that," Menou said, shortly. "There is no doubt that we blame
the National Guards, who were so easily routed by the peasants on
the tenth of March, more severely than they deserve. I rode forward
to encourage the men, at their last attack. I never saw soldiers
fight with such fury as did these peasants. They threw themselves
on the troops like tigers, in many cases wresting their arms from
them and braining them with their own muskets. Even our best
soldiers seemed cowed, by the fierceness with which they were
attacked; and as for the men of the new levies, they were worse
than useless, and their efforts to force their way to the rear
blocked the way of the reinforcements; who were trying, though I
must own not very vigorously, to get to the front.

"The peasants were well led, too, and acting on an excellent plan
of defence. They must have been sheltered altogether from our fire,
for among the dead I did not see one who had been killed by a
cannonball. The country must possess hundreds of points, equally
well adapted for defence; and if these are as well and obstinately
held as this has been, it will take even more than fifty thousand
men to suppress the insurrection."

"The Convention is going to work the wrong way," Berruyer said.
"The commissioners have orders to hang every peasant found in arms,
and every suspect; that is to say, virtually every one in La
Vendee. It would have been infinitely better for them to have
issued a general amnesty; to acknowledge that they themselves have
made a mistake; that the cures of Poitou and Brittany should be
excepted from the general law, and allowed to continue their work
in their respective parishes without interruption; and that for a
year, at least, this part of France should be exempt from
conscription. Why, if this campaign goes on, a far larger force
will be employed here than the number of troops which the district
was called upon to contribute, to say nothing of the enormous
expense and loss of men.

"It is a hideous business altogether, to my mind. I would give all
I possess to be recalled, and sent to fight on the frontier."

Two hours after the fight, Leigh with his band, of whom none had
been killed, although several had received wounds more or less
serious, arrived at Chemille. They had been preceded by many of the
peasants, who had already carried the news of the fight, and that
the column from Thouars had been delayed for three hours,