A cousin of his was a member of the National Convention, and one of those called Mountaineers, or sturdy partisans of Marat and Robespierre.  It was to the influence of this cousin, that he was indebted, first for a commission as an adjutant-general, and afterwards for his promotion to a general of brigade.  In 1793, he was ordered to march, under the command of Santerre, to La Vendee, where he shared in the defeat of the republicans at Vihiers.  At the engagement near Roches d’Erigne he commanded, for the first time, a separate column, and the capacity and abilities which he displayed on that occasion were such as might have been expected from a man who had passed the first thirty years of his life in brothels and gambling-houses.  So pleasant were his dispositions, that almost the whole army narrowly escaped having been thrown and pushed into the River Loire.  The battle of Doux was the only one in which he had a share where the republicans were not routed; but some few days afterwards, near Coron, all the troops under him were cut to pieces, and he was himself wounded.

The confidence of his friends, the Jacobins, increased, however, in proportion to his disasters, and he was, in 1794, after the superior number of the republican soldiers had forced the remnants of the Royalists to evacuate what was properly called La Vendee, appointed a commander-in-chief.  He had now an opportunity to display his infamy and barbarity.  Having established his headquarters at Mantes, where he was safe, amidst the massacres of women and children ordered by his friend Carriere, he commanded the republican army to enter La Vendee in twelve columns, preceded by fire and sword; and within four weeks, one of the most populous departments of France, to the extent and circumference of sixty leagues, was laid waste-not a house, not a cottage, not a tree was spared, all was reduced to ashes; and the unfortunate inhabitants, who had not perished amid the ruin of their dwellings, were shot or stabbed; while attempting to save themselves from the common conflagration.  On the 22d of January, 1794, he wrote to the Committee of Public Safety of the National Convention:  “Citizen Representatives!—­A country of sixty leagues extent, I have the happiness to inform you, is now a perfect desert; not a dwelling, not a bush, but is reduced to ashes; and of one hundred and eighty thousand worthless inhabitants, not a soul breathes any longer.  Men and women, old men and children, have all experienced the national vengeance, and are no more.  It was a pleasure to a true republican to see upon the bayonets of each of our brave republicans the children of traitors, or their, heads.  According to the lowest calculation, I have despatched, within three months, two hundred thousand individuals of both sexes, and of all ages.  Vive la Republique!!!” In the works of Prudhomme and our republican writers, are inserted hundreds of letters, still more cruelly extravagant, from this ci-devant friend of Liberty and Equality, and at present faithful subject, and grand officer of the Legion of Honour, of His Imperial Majesty Napoleon the First.