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, Mad. 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 awe-struck spectators have concurred in stating, that it brought forcibly to their imaginations the unspeakable terrors of the great day of judgment.—­Edinb.  Rev. No.  LI. p. 24.]

It is said that when the Prince Talmont, with the royalists, crossed over from Saint Florent, under the fire of the republican troops who had taken possession of the heights, they consisted of thirty thousand individuals, but that there were not twenty thousand warriors; among them were five thousand women:  arrived in the open country, without warlike stores, they soon wanted provisions.  This multitude created a famine wherever it went, and suffered a famine itself.  The first unsuccessful enterprize produced discouragement, and necessarily the desertion of the army:  it diminished two-thirds when it was repulsed at Angers; and when the chiefs, despairing (after the battle of Mans) of not being able to recross the Loire at Ancenis, led back the wrecks of the army to Savenay, it consisted only of fifteen thousand men, half dead with hunger and misery:  the major part of these were exterminated by the republicans; the rest dispersed themselves, and from that time all efforts ceased.  Prince de Talmont was arrested near Erne, tried at Rennes, and executed at Laval:  of the fate of Lescure and the other chiefs, a melancholy catalogue is furnished by Madame de la Roche-Jaquelin.

The wind favoring us the day following, we sailed at break of day, and arrived at Angers at the close of a beautiful evening.  The approach to this town, in sailing up the river Mayenne, is highly picturesque; its ancient castle is situated on a high rock overhanging the river; its walls and antique towers, built by the English, have an imposing effect.  The town stands in a plain, which, in the distance, being fringed with wood, together with the corn and meadow ground, give it that richness and beauty that characterizes the whole country between Nantes and Angers.  The river Mayenne, and a small branch of the Loire, divide the town.  It is the chief seat of the province of Maine-et-Loire, formerly the capital of Anjou.  It is a large ancient city, with a fine cathedral, a botanical garden, museum, and several manufactories of cottons; one of them in imitation of India handkerchiefs.  Here the last effort was made by the Vendeans, whose flight from it was immediately followed by the bloody and disastrous affair of Mans.