to inflict death:  but let one brave man set his heel upon its head, and the noxious animal is destroyed for ever:  so it is with the party who now rules the Convention.  Now that we have with us the all-powerful prestige of victory, let us march at once to Paris; hundreds will join us on the way, and what force can at the moment be collected to stop us?  Let us proceed at once to Paris, and proclaim at the door of the Convention, in the gardens of the Tuilleries, in the Place Louis Quinze, where our sainted monarch so nobly shed his blood, that France again submits herself to her King.”

“Would that we could!” said de Lescure; “would that the spirit of revolution was yet sufficiently quenched in France to allow us to follow your advice; but there is much, very much to be done before a royalist army can march from La Vendee to Paris; unthought of sufferings to be endured, the blood of thousands to be sacrificed, before France will own that she has been wrong in the experiment she has made.  We must fight our battles by inches, and be satisfied, if, when dying, we can think that we have left to our children a probability of final victory.  Normandy and the Gironde may be unwilling to submit to the Jacobin leaders, but they are as yet as warmly attached to the Republic as Paris itself.  And, Bonchamps, you little know the dispositions and character of the men, who at our bidding have left their homes and come to Saumur, if you think that at our bidding they will march to Paris; they are even now burning to return home, to recount to their wives and children what they have done.

“Not half the number that came to Saumur would leave the town with us on the road to Paris; and before we could reach Tours, the army would have melted away from us like snow from a mountain top, when the sun begins to shine.  It is here, in our own locality, that we should endeavour to extend our influence.  In Southern Brittany the people, I believe, are with us, but the towns are full of the troops of the Republic.  Let us drive them out of Angers, Ancenis, and Nantes, as we have driven them from Saumur.  Let us force them from the banks of the Loire, and become masters of the coast of Southern Brittany.  Then we may expect men and money from England.  Then we may fairly hope for such foreign aid as may enable us to face the Republic; but at present, if we march to Paris, we march to certain destruction.”

“M. de Lescure is right,” said Stofflet, “our men would not go far from their homes; we must remember that they are not paid, nor have we the means of paying them; if we had English gold, we might perhaps make our way to Paris.”

“Our men are not so mercenary, Stofflet,” said Bonchamps, “I do not think they have shewn any great desire for plunder.”

“No,” said Stofflet, “but they must live; if they are to have neither pay nor plunder, how are they to get to Paris?”