y
known, save to my own tenants.

"After our meal, we will ride round and see how they are off for
arms and powder. That is our great weakness. I am afraid, taking
the whole country round, that not one man in twenty possesses a
gun."

This indeed was found to be the case, as far as those on the estate
were concerned. The men themselves, however, seemed to think little
of this.

"We will take them from the Blues," several of them said
confidently. "It does not matter a bit. They will only have time to
fire one volley, in these lanes of ours, and then we shall be among
them; and a pike or pitchfork are just as good, at close quarters,
as a bayonet."

That the whole country was astir was evident, from the fact that
the sound of the church bells rose from the woods, in all
directions. All work was suspended, and the peasants flocked into
the little villages to hear the news that was brought in, from
several directions.

Cathelineau had, in the course of the night, gathered a party of
twenty-seven men who, at daybreak, had started out from Pin,
setting the church bells ringing in the villages through which they
passed; until a hundred men, armed for the most part with
pitchforks and stakes, had gathered round him. Then he boldly
attacked the chateau of Tallais, garrisoned by a hundred and fifty
soldiers, having with them a cannon. This was fired, but the shot
passed over the peasants' heads, and with a shout they dashed
forward, and the soldiers of the republic threw away their arms and
fled. Thus Cathelineau's followers became possessed of firearms,
some horses and, to their great delight, a cannon.

Their leader did not waste a moment, but marched at once against
Chemille, his force increasing at every moment, as the men flocked
in from the villages. There were, at Chemille, two hundred soldiers
with three guns; but some of the fugitives from Tallais had already
arrived there, bringing news of the desperate fury with which the
peasants had attacked them and, at the sight of the throng
approaching, with their captured cannon, the garrison lost heart
altogether and bolted, leaving their three cannon, their
ammunition, and the greater portion of their muskets behind them.

The news spread with incredible rapidity. From each village they
passed through, boys were despatched as messengers, and their
tidings were taken on by fresh relays. By the afternoon all the
country, for thirty miles round, knew that Cathelineau