La Vendée | Page 7

There were garrisons in
Nantes, in Anjou, and in Saumur; and detachments from these places
were sent into the smaller towns and villages, into every mayoralty, to
enforce the collection of the levy, and to take off with them the victims
of the conscription. Among other places, an attempt was made to carry
out the new law at St. Florent, and at this place was made the first
successful resistance, by an armed force, to the troops of the
Convention.
St. Florent is a small town on the south bank of the Loire, in the
province of Anjou, and at the northern extremity of that district, now so
well known by the name of La Vendée. It boasted of a weekly market,
a few granaries for the storing of corn, and four yearly fairs for the sale
of cattle. Its population and trade, at the commencement of the war,
was hardly sufficient to entitle it to the name of a town; but it had early
acquired some celebrity as a place in which the Republic was known to
be very unpopular, and in which the attachment of the people to the
throne was peculiarly warm.
Here the work of the conscription was commenced in silence. The lists

were filled, and the names were drawn. No opposition was shown to
the employé's in this portion of their unpopular work. Indeed, it appears
that no organized system of opposition had been planned; but the first
attempt that was made to collect the unfortunate recruits upon whom
the lots had fallen, was the signal for a general revolt. The first name on
the list was that of Peter Berrier; and had Peter Berrier intended to
prove himself a good citizen and a willing soldier, he should, without
further call, have attended that day at the temporary barracks which had
been established in St. Florent. But he had not done so, and there was
nothing wonderful or unusual in this; for on all occasions of the kind
many of the conscripts had to be sought out, and brought forth from the
bosoms of their families, to which they retired, with a bashful
diffidence as to their own peculiar fitness for martial glory. But in this
instance not one of the chosen warriors obeyed the summons of the
Convention, by attending at the barracks of St. Florent. Not one of the
three hundred thousand men was there; and it was soon apparent to the
colonel in command of the detachment, that he had before him the
unpleasant duty of collecting one by one, from their different
hiding-places, the whole contingent which the town of St. Florent was
bound to supply.
Peter Berrier was the first on the list, and as it was well known that he
was an ostler at a little auberge in the middle of the square, a corporal
and a couple of soldiers was despatched to the house of entertainment
to capture him; and the trio soon found that they would not have far to
search, for Peter was standing at the gate of the inn yard, and with him
three or four of his acquaintance--men equally well-known in St.
Florent.
There was a sturdy farmer there of the better sort--a man who not only
held a farm near the town, but had a small shop within it, for the sale of
seeds and tools for planting--his name was Foret--and it was said that
no man in St. Florent was more anxious for the restoration of the King.
There was the keeper of the auberge himself, who seemed but little
inclined to find fault with his servant, for the contumacious manner in
which he treated the commands of the Convention; and there was the
well-known postillion of St. Florent, the crack of whose whip was so

welcome from Angers to Nantes, the sound of whose cheery voice was
so warmly greeted at every hostelrie between those towns. The name of
Cathelineau was not then so well known as it was some six months
afterwards, but even then Cathelineau, the postillion, was the most
popular man in St. Florent. He was the merriest among the mirthful, the
friend of every child, the playmate of every lass in the town; but he was
the comforter of those poorer than himself, and the solace of the aged
and afflicted. He was the friend of the banished priest, and the trusted
messenger of the royalist seigneur; all classes adored him, save those
who sided with the Republic, and by them he had long been looked on
as an open and declared enemy. St. Florent was justly proud of its
postillion; and now that evil days were come upon the little town, that
their priests were banished, and these young men called for to swell the
armies of the