little rooms; and were not a little startled, when they saw from their windows, two or three thousand of the National guard march fiercely out to repulse a party of the insurgents, who were advancing, it was reported, under the command of Henri de Larochejaquelein. Next day, however, these valiant warriors came flying back in great confusion. They had met and been defeated by the insurgents; and the town was filled with terrors, and with the cruelties to which terror always gives birth. Some hundreds of Marseillois arrived at this crisis to reinforce the republican army; and proposed, as a measure of intimidation and security, that they should immediately massacre all the prisoners.-The native leaders all expressed the greatest horror at this proposal-but it was nevertheless carried into effect. The author saw these unfortunate creatures marched out of the town, under a guard of their butchers. They were then drawn up in a neighbouring field, and were cut down with the sabremost of them quietly kneeling and exclaiming, Vive le Roi! It was natural for Mad. de L. and her party to think that their turn was to come next: and the alarms of their compassionate jailor did not help to allay their apprehensions. Their fate hung indeed upon the slightest accident. One day they received a letter from an emigrant, congratulating them on the progress of the counter-revolution, and exhorting them not to remit their efforts in the cause. The very day after, their letters were all opened at the municipality, and sent to them unsealed. The patriots, however, it turned out, were too much occupied with apprehensions of their own, to attend to any thing else. The National guards of the place were not much accustomed to war, and trembled at the retaliation which the excesses of their Marsellois auxiliaries might so well justify. A sort of panic took possession even of their best corps; nor could the general prevail on his cavalry to reconnoitre beyond the walls of the town. A few horsemen, indeed, once ventured half a mile farther; but speedily came galloping back in alarm, exclaiming, that a great troop of the enemy were at their heels. It turned out to be only a single country-man at work in his field, with a team of six oxen. There was no waiting an assault with such forces; and, in the beginning of May 1793, it was resolved to evacuate the place, and fall back on Thouars. The aristocratic captives were fortunately forgotten in the hurry of this inglorious movement; and though they listened through their closed shutters, with no great tranquillity, to the parting clamours and imprecations of the Marseillois, they soon received assurance of their deliverance, in the supplications of their keeper, and many others of the municipality, to be allowed to retire with them to Clisson.

and to seek shelter there from the vengeance of the advancing royalists. M. de Lescure, with his usual good nature, granted all these requests; and they soon set off, with a grateful escort, for their deserted chateau.

The dangers he had already incurred by his inaction--the successes of his less prudent friends, and the apparent weakness and irresolution of their opponents, now decided M. de L. to dissemble no longer with those who seemed entitled to his protection; and he resolved instantly to take his part with the insurgents, and support the efforts of his adventurous cousin. He accordingly sent round without the delay of an instant, to intimate his purpose to all the parishes where he had influence, and busied himself and his household in preparing horses and arms, while his wife and her women were engaged in manufacturing white cockades. In the midst of these preparations, Henri de Larochejaquelein arrived, flushed with victory and hope, and announced his seizure of Bressuire, and all the story of his brief and busy campaign.

Upon his first arrival in the revolted district of his own domains, he found the peasants rather disheartened for want of a leader-some setting off for the army of Anjou, and others meditating a return to their own homes. His appearance, however, and the heartiness of his adherence to their cause, at once revived the sinking flame of their enthusiasm, and spread it through all the adjoining region. Before next evening, he found himself at the head of near ten thousand devoted followerswithout arms or discipline indeed, but with hearts in the trimand ready to follow wherever he would venture to lead. There were only about 200 firelocks in the whole array, and these were shabby fowlingpieces, without bayonets: The rest were equipped with scythes, or blades of knives stuck upon poles-with spits, or with good heavy cudgels of knotty wood. In presenting himself to this romantic army, their youthful leader made the following truly eloquent and characteristic speech.My good friends, if my father were here to lead you, we should all proceed with greater confidence. For my part, I know I am but a child-but I hope I have courage enough not to be quite unworthy of supplying his place to you-Follow me when I advance against the enemy-kill me when I turn my back upon them-and revenge me when they give me my death. That very day he led them into action. A strong post of the republicans was stationed at Aubiers :-Henri, with a dozen or two of his best marksmen, glided silently behind the hedge which surrounded the field in which they were, and immediately began to fire-some of the unarmed peasants handing forward loaded muskets to them in quick succession

He himself fired near 200 shots that day; and a gamekeeper who stood beside him, almost as many. The soldiers, though at first astonished at this assault from an invisible enemy, soon collected themselves, and made a movement to gain a small height that was near. Henri chose this moment to make a general assault; and calling out to his men, that they were runing, burst through the hedge at their head, and threw them instantly into flight and irretrievable confusion; got possession of their guns and stores, and pursued them to within a few miles of the walls of Bressuire. Such, almost universally, was the tactic of these formidable insurgents. Their whole art of war consisted in creeping round the hedges which separated them from their enemies, and firing there till they began to waver or move—and then rushing forward with shouts and impetuosity, but without any regard to order, possessing themselves first of the artillery, and rushing into the heart of their opponents with prodigious fierceness and activity. In these assaults they seldom lost so much as one man for every five that fell of the regulars. They were scarcely ever discovered soon enough to suffer from the musketry-and seldom gave the artillery an opportunity of firing more than once. When they saw the flash of their pieces, they instantly threw themselves flat on the ground till the shot flew over, then started up, and rushed on the gunners before they could reload. If they were finally repulsed, they retreated and dispersed with the same magical rapidity, darting through the hedges, and scattering among the defiles in a way that eluded all pursuit, and exposed those who attempted it to murderous ambuscades at every turning.

As soon as it was known that M. de Lescure had declared for the white cockade, forty parishes assumed that badge of hostility; and he and his cousin found themselves at the head of near twenty thousand men. The day after, they brought eighty horsemen to the chateau. These gallant knights, however, were not very gorgeously caparisoned. Their steeds were of all sizes and colours-many of them with packs instead of saddles, and loops of rope for stirrups-pistols and sabres of all shapes tied on with cords-white or black cockades in their hats-and tricoloured ones-with bits of epaulets taken from the vanquished republicans, dangling in ridicule at the tails of their horses. Such as they were, however, they filled the chateau with tumult and exultation, and frightened the hearts out of some unhappy republicans, who came to look after their wives who had taken refuge in that asylum. They did them no other harm, however, than compelling them to spit on their tricolor cockades, and to call Vive le Roi!--which the poor people, being ⚫ des gens honnêtes et paisibles,' very readily performed.

In the afternoon, Madame de L., with a troop of her triumphant attendants, paid a visit to her late prison at Bressuire. The place was now occupied by near twenty thousand insurgents-all as remarkable, she assures us, for their simple piety, and the innocence and purity of their morals, as for the valour and enthusiasm which had banded them together. Even in a town so obnoxious as this had become, from the massacre of the prisoners, there were no executions, and no pillage. Some of the men were expressing a great desire for some tobacco; and upon being asked whether there was none in the place, answered, "quite simply, that there was plenty, but they had no money to buy it.

In giving a short view of the whole insurgent force, which she estimates at about 80,000 men, Mad. de Larochejaquelein here introduces a short account of its principal leaders, whose characters are drawn with a delicate, though probably too favourable hand. M. D'Elbée, M. De Bonchamps, and M. De Masigny, were almost the only ones who had formerly exercised the profession of arms, and were therefore invested with the formal command. Stofflet, a native of Alsace, had formerly served in a Swiss regiment, but had long been a gamekeeper in Poitou. Of Cathelineau we have spoken already. Henri de Larochejaquelein, and M. De Lescure, were undoubtedly the most popular and important members of the association, and are painted with the greatest liveliness and discrimination. The former, tall, fair, and graceful-with a shy, affectionate, and indolent manner in private life, had, in the field, all the gaiety, animation and adventure, that he used to display in the chase. Utterly indifferent to danger, and ignorant of the very name of fear, his great faults as a leader were rashness in attack, and undue exposure of his person. He knew little, and cared less for the scientific details of war; and could not always maintain the gravity that was required in the councils of the leaders. Sometimes after bluntly giving his opinion, he would quietly fall asleep till the end of the deliberations; and, when reproached with this neglect of his higher duties, would answer, What business had they to make me a General?-I would much rather have been a private light-horseman, and taken the sport as it came.” With all this light-heartedness, he was full of kindness to his soldiers, and compassion for his prisoners. He would sometimes offer, indeed, to fight them fairly hand to hand, before accepting their surrender; but never refused to give quarter, nor ever treated them with insult or severity.

M. de Lescure was altogether of an opposite character. His courage, though of the most heroic temper, was invariably united

with perfect coolness and deliberation. He had a great theoretical knowledge of war, having diligently studied all that was written on the subject; and was the only man in the party who knew the least of fortification. His temper was unalterably sweet and placid; and his never-failing humanity, in the tremendous scenes he had to pass through, had something in it of an angelical character. Though constantly engaged at the head of his troops, and often leading them on to the assault, he never could persuade himself to take the life of a fellow-creature, or to show the smallest severity to his captives. One day a soldier, whom he thought had surrendered, fired at him, almost at the muzzle of his piece. He put aside the musket with his sword, and said, with perfect composure, take that prisoner to the rear. His attendants, enraged at the perfidy of the assault, cut him down behind his back. He turned round at the noise, and flew into the most violent passion in which he had ever been seen. This was the only time in his life in which he was known to utter an oath. There was no spirit of vengeance in his nature; and he frequently saved more lives after a battle, than had been lost in the course of it.

The discipline of the army, thus commanded, has been already spoken of. It was never even divided into regiments or companies. When the chiefs had agreed on a plan of operations, they announced to their followers;-M. Lescure goes to take such a bridge, who will follow him? M. Marigny keeps the passes in such a valley-who will go with him?-and so on. They were never told to march to the right or the left, but to that tree or to that steeple. They were generally very ill supplied with ammunition, and were often obliged to attack a post of artillery with cudgels. On one occasion, while rushing on for this purpose, they suddenly discovered a huge crucifix in a recess of the wood on their flank, and immediately every man of them stopped short, and knelt quietly down, under the fire of the enemy. They then got up, ran right forward, and took the cannon. They had tolerable medical assistance; and found admirable nurses for the wounded, in the nunneries and other religious establishments that existed in all the considerable towns.

Their first enterprise, after the capture of Bressuire, was a gainst Thouars. To get at this place, a considerable river was to be crossed.-M. de Lescure headed a party, that was to force the passage of a bridge; but when he came within the heavy fire of its defenders, all his peasants fell back, and left him for some minutes alone:-His clothes were torn by the bullets, but not a shot took effect on his person -He returned to the charge again with Henri de Larochejaquelein ;-their followers, all but