the retainers of the family assembled at the chateau, and danced in the barn, or the court-yard, according to the season. The ladies of the house joined in the festivity, and that without any airs of condescension or of mockery: for, in their own life, there was little splendour or luxurious refinement. They travelled on horseback, or in heavy carriages drawn by oxen; and had little other amusement than in the care of their dependants, and the familiar intercourse of neighbours, among whom there was no rivalry or principle of ostentation. From all this there resulted, as Madame De L. assures us, a certain innocence, and kindliness of character, joined with great hardihood and gayety, which carries with it an idea of something more chivalrous and romantic, more honest and unsophisticated, than any thing we expect to meet with, in this modern world of artifice and derision. There was great purity of morals, accordingly, and general cheerfulness and content in all this district; crimes were never heard of, and lawsuits almost unknown. Though not very well educated, the population was exceedingly devout; though theirs was a kind of superstitious and traditional devotion, it must be owned, rather than an enlightened or rational faith. They had the greatest veneration for crucifixes and images of their saints, and had no idea of any duty more imperious, than that of attending on all the solemnities of religion. They were singularly attached to their curés, who were almost all born and bred in the country, spoke their provincial dialect, and shared in all their pastimes and occupations. When a hunting-match was to take place, the clergyman announced it from the pulpit after prayers, and then took his fowling-piece, and accompanied his congregation to the thicket. It was in behalf of these curés, in part, that the first disturbances were excited. Anonymous.. SUFFERINGS OF THE VENDEAN ROYALISTS. THE last great battle was fought near Chollet, when the insurgents, after a furious and sanguinary resist ance, were at last borne down by the multitude of their opponents, and driven down into the low country on the banks of the Loire. Not only the whole wreck of the army, but a great proportion of the men, women, and children of the country, flying in consternation from the burnings and butchery of the government forces, flocked down, in agony and despair, to the banks of this great river. On gaining the heights of St Florent, one of the most mournful, and, at the same time, most magnificent, spectacles burst upon the eye. These heights form a vast semicircle; at the bottom of which a broad bare plain extends to the edge of the water. Near a hundred thousand unhappy souls now blackened over that dreary expanse,-old men, infants, and women, mingled with the half-armed soldiery, caravans, crowded baggage-waggons, and teams of oxen, all full of despair, impatience, anxiety, and terror. Behind were the smokes of their burning villages, and the thunder of the hostile artillery: before, the broad stream of the Loire, divided by a long low island, also covered with the fugitives,-twenty frail barks plying in the stream, and, on the far banks, the disorderly movements of those who had effected the passage, and were waiting there to be rejoined by their companions. Such, Madame De L. assures us, was the tumult and terror of the scene, and so awful the recollections it inspired, that it can never be effaced from the memory of any of those who beheld it; and that many of its awestruck spectators have concurred in stating, that it brought forcibly to their imaginations the unspeakable terrors of the great day of judgment. Through this dismayed and bewildered multitude, the disconsolate family of their gallant general made their way silentlyto the shore ;-M. De Lescure stretched, almost insensible, on a wretched litter,-his wife walking by his side, and, behind her, her faithful nurse, with her helpless and astonished infant in her arms. When they arrived on the beach, they with difficulty got a crazy boat to carry them to the island; but the aged monk, who steered it, would not venture to cross the larger branch of the stream, and the poor wounded man was obliged to submit to the agony of another removal. At length they were landed on the opposite bank, where wretchedness and desolation appeared still more conspicuous. Thousands of helpless wretches were lying on the grassy shore, or roaming about in search of the friends, from whom they had been divided. There was a general complaint of cold and hunger; and nobody in a condition to give any directions, or administer any relief. M. De L. suffered excruciating pain from the piercing air which blew upon his feverish frame, the poor infant screamed for food,-and the helpless mother was left to minister to both,-while her attendant went among the burnt and ruined villages, to seek a drop of milk for the baby. At length they got again in motion for the adjoining village of Varades, M. De L. borne, in a sort of chair, upon the pikes of his soldiers, with his wife and the maid-servant walking before him, and supporting his legs, wrapped up in their cloaks. With great difficulty they procured a little room, in a cottage swarming with soldiers,-most of them famishing for want of food, and yet still so mindful of the rights of their neighbours, that they would not take a few potatoes from the garden of the cottage, till Mad. De L. had obtained leave of the proprietor.-The day after they advanced towards Rennes. M. De L. could find no other conveyance than a baggage-waggon; at every jolt of which he suffered such anguish, as to draw forth the most piercing shrieks even from his manly bosom. After some time an old chaise was discovered; a piece of artillery was thrown away to supply it with horses, and the wounded general was laid in it,-his head being supported in the lap of Agatha, his mother's faithful waiting-woman, and now the only attendant of his wife and infant. In three painful days they reached Laval; Mad. De L. frequently suffering from absolute want, and sometimes getting nothing to eat during the whole day, but one or two sour apples. M. De L. was nearly insensible during the whole journey. He was roused but once, when there was a report that a party of the enemy were in sight. He then called for his musket, and attempted to get out of the carriage;-addressed exhortations and reproaches to the troops, that were flying around him, and would not rest till an officer, in whom he had confidence, came up, and restored some order to the detachment. The alarm turned out to be a false one.-At Laval they halted for several days; and he was so much recruited by the repose, that he was able to get for half an hour on horseback, and seemed to be fairly in the way of recovery, when his excessive zeal and anxiety for the good behaviour of the troops tempted him to premature exertions, from the consequences of which he never afterwards recovered. The troops being all collected and refreshed at Laval, it was resolved to turn upon their pursuers, and give battle to the advancing army of the republic. The conflict was sanguinary, but ended most decidedly in favour of the Vendeans. This was the last grand crisis of the insurrection. The way to La Vendee was once more open, and the fugitives had it in their power to return triumphant to their fastnesses and their homes, after rousing Brittany by the example of their valour and success. Unfortunately, however, a difference of opinion prevailed amongst them with regard to the course which they should next pursue; and the republicans had time to rally, and bring up their reinforcements, before any thing was definitively settled.-In the mean time M. De L. became visibly worse; and, one morning, when his wife alone was in the room, he called her to him, and prepared her for his approaching end. Next day they were under the necessity of moving forward; and, on the journey, he learned accidentally, from one of the officers, the dreadful details of the Queen's execution, which his wife had been at great pains to keep from his knowledge. This intelligence seemed to bring back his fever, though he still spoke of living to avenge her:-" If I do live," he said, "it shall be for vengeance only,-no more mercy from me." That evening Mad. De L. entirely overcome with anxiety and fatigue, had fallen into a deep sleep on a mat before his bed; and, soon after, his condition became altogether desperate. He became speechless, and nearly insensible; the sacraments were administered, and various applications made, without awaking the unhappy sleeper by his side. Soon after midnight, however, she started up, and instantly became aware of the full extent of her misery. To fill up its measure, it was announced, in the course of the morning, that they must immediately resume their march with the last division of the army. The dying man was roused only to heavy moanings by the pain of lifting him into the carriage, where his faithful Agatha again supported his head, and a surgeon watched all the changes in his condition. Mad. De L. was placed on horseback; and, surrounded by her father and mother, and a number of officers, went forward, scarcely conscious of all active exertion,-only that sometimes, in the bitterness of her heart, when she saw the dead bodies of the republican soldiers on the road, she made her horse trample upon them, as if in vengeance for the slaughter of her husband. In the course of little more than an hour she thought she heard some little stir in the carriage, and insisted upon stopping to inquire into the cause. The officers, however, crowded around her, and then her father came up, and said that M. De L. was in the same state as before, but that he suffered dreadfully from the cold, and would be much distressed, if the door was again to be opened. Obliged to be satisfied with this answer, she went on, in sullen and gloomy silence, for some hours longer, in a dark and rainy day of November. It was night when they reached the town of Fougeres; and, when lifted from her horse at the gate, she was unable either to stand or walk she was carried into a wretched house, crowded with troops of all descriptions, where she waited two. hours in agony, till she heard that the carriage with M. De L. was come up. She was left alone, for a dreadful moment, with her mother: and then M. De Beauvolliers came in, bathed in tears, and, taking both her hands, told her she must only now think of saving her child. Her husband had expired, when she heard the noise in the carriage, soon after their setting out,— and the surgeon had accordingly left it as soon as the order of the march had carried her ahead: but the faithful Agatha, fearful lest her appearance might alarm her mistress in the midst of the journey, had remained alone, in that dreadful situation, for all the rest : |