A warning to Parisian sportsmen--Clisson--The château of
M. Lemot--My guide--The Vendean column--The battle of
Torfou--Two omitted names--Piffanges--Tibulle and the
Loire--Gilles de Laval--His edifying death--Means taken to
engrave a remembrance on the minds of children
The day after my arrival at la Jarrie I dressed in my shooting outfit,
and, with gun on shoulder and game bag on back, I set off for Clisson.
Two hours later I arrived there with my thighs torn by furze, my hands
bleeding from briars, without having killed even a single lark.
Here a word of warning, in passing, to Parisians who should imagine
that la Vendée is still a country abounding in game, and who should
make the journey of a hundred and twenty leagues under that belief: I
have shot there for a month, and have not raised fifteen partridges!
On the other hand, vipers swarm there; one comes across them at every
step, and every sportsman ought to carry a flask of alkali in his
pocket.
To return to Clisson, which I was in so great a hurry to see that I
left my excellent hosts to visit it the day after my arrival. Well,
Clisson, which people had praised so highly to me, would have been
an extremely pretty town in Greece or Italy, but in France and in la
Vendée it was not: there is something incompatible between the misty
skies of the west and the flat roofs of the east, between the pretty
Italian factories and our dirty French countrysides. The château
de Clisson itself, thanks to the care of M. Lemot, the celebrated
sculptor, is so well preserved that one is tempted to be angry with
its owner for not having allowed a single spider's web to crawl over
its walls. It reminded one of an old man made up on shaving days,
with false teeth and false hair and rouged. M. Lemot spent enormous
sums to produce a picturesque effect, and only made an anomaly; and
this anomaly was illustrated all the more forcibly by the presence of
the tricolour flag floating over the eleventh-century ruin: the mayor
would not allow it to be placed on the clock tower. The park is like
every other park in existence--like Ermenonville or Mortefontaine: a
river, rocks, grottoes, statues and temples to the Muses, to Apollo
and to Diana. Instead of all these, imagine on both sides of the
valley cottages grouped where the temples stand, some seeming to be
climbing up the hillside and others descending it, dotted here and
there according to the fancy or convenience of their owners; the river
flowing at the bottom of the ravine, and, on the top of the hill, the
castle: an old ruin rent by cracks, surrounded by stones which time
has caused to roll down like dead leaves round the trunk of an oak
tree. Add to this its old memories of Olivier de Clisson and its modern
memories of the Chouans and the Blues; the vault which was used as a
dungeon by the Barons, and the well that forms a tomb for four hundred
Vendeans--and, if you possess a romantic turn of mind, you will have
food for centuries of contemplation.
M. Lemot had done all he could to try and organise a National Guard
at Clisson; he had already found ten volunteers, who were drilled in
secret by the quarter-master and the gendarmerie. This quarter-master
was an excellent fellow; though, for all that, he was extremely anxious
to arrest me: telling the Liberals that I looked like a Chouan, and
the Chouans that I looked like a Liberal; the consequence thereof
being that the town would have been very pleased to see me marched
off to gaol. I had my choice of a safeguard in my passport, which
was perfectly correct, and in the letter from General La Fayette. I
decided upon the passport, and I believe I was rightly inspired in
my decision. I returned that same night to la Jarrie, although they
did not expect me till next day and reproached me terribly for my
imprudence; they could not get over their surprise that I had not
rested during the journey. It was settled in council that I was to
risk no more excursions without my guide, who had asked for a few days
to go and visit his children and to spread abroad in the neighbouring
villages the story of his adventure, which was to serve as a safeguard
for me. He reappeared at the time arranged and put himself at my
disposal, making himself answerable for everything. We took the road to
Torfou. My man had made himself smart when he was to be condemned to
penal servitude; for the type of his face and the style of his dress
were those of a town dweller, which had not struck me before; but he
adopted the costume of the countryside while acting as my guide. I now
for the first time examined him with some attention. He had preserved
the primitive type of the peasantry of the second race: from his narrow
forehead, his serious face and his hair cut round, he looked like a
peasant of the time of Charles le Gros. He scarcely opened his mouth,
except it was to point out some topographical point on the right or
left hand--
"It was here that the Blues were defeated!"
I don't think he had undertaken too much in promising me his
protection, for, although he had been pardoned by King Louis-Philippe,
the good man was a Chouan to the finger-tips. Moreover, in his eyes, it
was I who had pardoned him and not the king at all.
A quarter of a league from Torfou, in the middle of a space made by
four cross-roads, rose a stone column, twenty feet in height, almost
after the pattern of that in the place Vendôme. M. de la Bretèche had
it erected at his own expense at the time of the Restoration. Four
names in bronze letters, enclosed in a crown of the same metal, were
inscribed on it, each name facing one of the four roads, of which
this pillar forms the meeting-place: the names are those of Charette,
d'Elbée, Bonchamp and Lescure. I asked my guide for an explanation.
"Ah!" he said, in his own language, interspersed with old words
which seemed to have come back to him as he stepped on the ground
immortalised by these old memories, "because it was here that Kléber
and his _thirty-five thousand Mayençais_ were beaten by the Chouans."[1]
Then he burst out laughing, and, putting both hands close together,
imitated the cry of the screech-owl.
I stood on the very spot where the famous battle of Torfou had taken
place.
Then memories as befitted the son of a Republican came crowding upon
me, and it was now my turn to relate and the peasant's to listen.
"Oh! yes!" I said to myself, looking at the inscription carved on the
column, "'19 September 1793.' Yes, that's it."
Then I turned my eyes on the surrounding villages of Torfou, Buffière,
Tiffanges and Roussay.
"Yes," I went on, "all that was in flames and formed a ring of fire
on the horizon when Kléber arrived with the vanguard of the army of
Mayence, and shouted to his three thousand men the command, 'Halt! To
battle!' For, besides the noise of the conflagration, another loud
sound like the trampling down of leaves and breaking of branches was
heard ever coming nearer without anything being seen on the roads
which converged to the centre of the forest. By this forest, which the
Vendeans knew well, they drew slowly nearer and nearer; sometimes they
were obliged to crawl, sometimes to cut a passage through with their
swords, yet their line pressed closer and closer together and each
minute lessened the distance which separated them from their enemies.
Finally, they reached so near the outskirts of the wood that they
could see the army, restless but resolute, within gunshot and could
each pick out his own man before firing.... Suddenly, musketry-firing
soared aloud in a radius of three quarters of a league, died down,
then rose again, before anyone could tell either against whom, or how,
they could best defend themselves. The Vendeans seized the opportunity
this moment of disorder gave and rushed down the roads to charge the
Blues. Three thousand men were attacked from four different sides
by more than thirty thousand, who knew the geography of the country
and were fighting for their hearths and their faith! Each one of the
leaders whose name is inscribed on that column made his appearance
by the road towards which his name now points. Directly our soldiers
could distinguish the enemy, their courage returned. 'Come on, my brave
fellows!' Kléber shouted, flinging himself at their head; 'let us give
these beggars some lead and steel to digest!' He charged haphazard down
one of these four roads, met Lescure's army corps, broke it up like
glass and, whilst the latter was trying on foot, gun in hand, to rally
the inhabitants of Aubiers, Courlé and Échauboignes, he rushed to his
rearguard, which had followed up his action, and which was surrounded
by the three corps led by Ellbeé, Bonchamp and Charette. The artillery
had just arrived: fifteen pieces in position made holes at the rate of
six rounds a minute in the masses, which soon closed up again; three
charges of Vendean cavalry hurled themselves one after the other upon
the brazen muzzles and disappeared. This lasted two hours, Kléber
pushing Lescure before him, who always rallied his men again. Kléber
himself, pressed hard by the three other Vendean leaders, valiantly
carried on his retreat, until a fifth army of ten thousand men, led by
Donniss and la Rochejaquelein, came and threw themselves on his flanks,
firing point-blank, killing at every blow, and at last dealt confusion
in the Republican ranks. The head of the army, still commanded by
Kléber, reached la Sèvre; the heroic general captured the bridge,
crossed it and, calling a quarter-master named Schewardin, cried out,
'Stop here and be killed with two hundred men.' 'Yes, general!' was
Schewardin's reply. He picked his men, kept his word and saved the
army!"
"Oh! yes, that was how it happened," my Chouan answered, "for I was
there.... I was not quite fifteen then.... Look, monsieur," he went
on, taking off his hat and lifting his hair to show me a scar that
furrowed his forehead, "I got that here"--he struck the ground with
his foot.--"Here! ... It was one of the general's aides-de-camp who
struck me, quite a young fellow, almost as young as I was; but, before
falling, I had time to thrust my bayonet in his body and to fire at the
same moment.... When I came to my senses he was dead ... we had fallen
on top of one another ... and all round us, for a radius of a league,
lay Blues and Vendeans, so that you did not know where to place your
foot for fear of stepping on them. They were buried where they had
fallen, and that is why the trees here are so vigorous and the grass so
green."
I turned towards the column: nothing on it made mention of Kléber's
courage and Schewardin's devotion, nothing but just those four Vendean
names. I forgot where I was, for this one-sidedness made the blood rise
to my face.
"I do not know what it is prevents me from putting a bullet into the
middle of that column, and signing it Schewardin and Kléber!" I said
aloud, talking to myself without imparting to my man the reflections
that led to this monologue.
I felt my guide put a trembling hand on my shoulder, and I turned
round; he was very pale.
"For the Lord's sake, monsieur," he said, "don't do that; I have vowed
to bring you through safe and sound, and if you were to commit any
folly like that, I could no longer answer for you.... Do you know that
those four men are our gods, and every Vendean peasant says his prayers
here, as at the stations of the Virgin which you see at the entrance of
our villages? Do not do that; or beware of the hedgerows!"
We reached Tiffanges without saying another word.
Tiffanges is an ancient Roman station. During Cæsar's wars with the
Gauls, he sent Crassus, his lieutenant, there with the Seventh Legion;
from thence Crassus proceeded to Theowald, the Doué of our day, where
he pitched his camp. _Crassus adolescens cum legione septimâ, proximus
mare Oceanum in Andibus hiemârat_.[2] This region of the Gauls was
never wholly subdued by the Romans; the Pict kings always fought for
their liberty there. Augustus had hardly ascended the throne before
le Bocage uttered a fresh war-cry. Agrippa went there immediately,
believed he had subjugated the inhabitants and returned to Rome. Again
they rose in revolt. Messala succeeded him, and took Tibullus with him,
who in his capacity of poet claims for himself a portion of the honours
of the campaign--
"Non sine me est tibi partus honos: Tarbella Pyrene Testis,
et Oceani littora Santonici; Testis Arar, Rhodanusque celer,
magnusque Garumna, Carnuti et flavi, coerula lympha, Liger!"
--as much as to say, "You did not win this honour without me.
Witness Tarbella the Pyrenean, and the coasts of the Santonic Ocean
(Saintonge); remember also the Arar (the Saône) and the rapid Rhône and
wide Garonne, and the Loire, the blue waters of the fair Carnute."
Possibly, too, Tibullus followed Messala in the same way that Boileau
followed Louis XIV.; as to the Loire, if it was blue in the time
of Augustus, it has changed its colour singularly since that day!
Tiffanges is, indeed, a place full of memories of Cæsar, Adrian, Clovis
and the Visigoths; near the Roman tomb springs the Frankish cradle, as
can be clearly traced through the history of twenty long centuries. The
château, the ruins of which we visited, seems to be an eleventh-century
erection continued during the twelfth, and only finished at the end of
the thirteenth century. The famous Gilles de Laval, Marshal of Raiz,
who was known in the country under the name of _Barbe-Bleue_, inhabited
this castle, and by his way of living gave rise to a multitude of
popular traditions that are still quite fresh in the neighbouring
villages. In short, as there is justice in heaven, and a man who
pillaged twenty churches, ravished fifty maidens and gained riches must
always end badly, to acquit Providence you ought to know that this
Gilles de Laval was burnt in the meadow of Bièce, first being beheaded
at the solicitation of his family, which had great influence with the
sire de l'Hospital, who granted him this favour; but, previously, the
condemned man made a speech, at the conclusion of which, says history,
nothing could be heard but the sobbing of women. History also tells
(but as it is history, you need not pin faith to it) that the fathers
and mothers of high rank who heard Gilles de Laval's last words fasted
three days to win Divine forgiveness for him, which, doubtless, he
obtained, since his confessor was one of the cleverest of the time.
That done, these same parents inflicted a whipping on their children,
on the place of execution, to fix in their memories the recollection of
the punishment that overtook the great criminal! History omits to tell
us if the children of the sixteenth century were as fond of executions
as those of the nineteenth.
[1] The army corp which had evacuated Mayence and which was ordered to
la Vendée was really only composed of ten thousand four hundred men.
[2] Cæsar's _Commentaries_, I. iii. § 7.