82 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1794. 



hare been in their favour. But 

 tliat strength and those abilities had 

 overpowered the combined force 

 of the most formidable coalition 

 that had ever been framed against 

 a state; and thus, notwithstanding 

 the desperate jvsistance of men 

 who knew that, if Jefi-ated, death 

 would be their fate, and that in 

 victory alone lay their security, 

 the genius and military knowledge 

 of those wlio act d against them 

 proved ultimately successful. It 

 was a considerable time, however, 

 before thiit resolute party was sub- 

 dued whicii took up arms for the 

 royal cause in the department of 

 La Vendee. All Europe beheld, 

 with astonishment, tht obstinacy 

 and courage with wliicli they main- 

 tained their ground, in defiance of 

 the immense superiority of num- 

 bers and soldiership, and of every 

 advantage resulting to their ene- 

 mies from the support of a settled 

 and powerful government, and an 

 active and vigorous administration 

 of its vast pov.ers a:id resources. 



The long and celebrated content 

 between royalty and republicanism 

 in this province, had subsisted ever 

 since the death of Lewis XVL 

 to whose cause and memory the 

 inhabitants bore the most fervent 

 attachment. Their resistance to 

 the established government was of 

 a peculiar nature, and displayed 

 in a singular manner the character 

 of men invincibly attached to the 

 political and religious system of 

 their forefathers. No part of the 

 French nation 1 ad beheld the al- 

 terations in thj spiritual goverii- 

 m^iit of the kingdom with more 

 disapprobation. They had re- 

 mained equally attached to ihe an- 

 cient nobic families of the province^ 

 and had zealously protected them 



from that barbarous treatment 

 which the noblesse had experienced 

 in so many other paits of the king- 

 dom. When the disobedience of 

 such numbers of the French clergy 

 had subjected them to the penalties 

 enacted against them b3' the Con- 

 stituent Assembly, they braved all 

 dangers in affording them an asy- 

 lum agaii;st persecution. So ra- 

 dically indeed were they attached , 

 to the former establishment, both 

 in church and state, that they look- 

 ed with contempt and abhorrence 

 on every decree that thwarted 

 them; and appeared constantly de- 

 tr-rmined to seize the first favoura- 

 ble occasion of openly opposing 

 them. Comformably to this dis- 

 position, they had, as soon as they 

 were apprized of the King's flight 

 from Paris, resolved unanimously 

 to take up arms in his defence, , 

 and made themselves ready to join 

 those who should espouse his 

 cause. 



These various considerations had 

 rendered them particularly obnox- 

 ious to those who were in possession 

 ot the supreme power ; while it 

 pointed them out, at the same time, 

 as the iTttest instruments of their 

 desiofns to those who were medi- 

 tating an opposition to revolution- 

 ary measures. From the senti- 

 ments unequivocally professed by 

 the inhabitants of La Vendee, that 

 department had loner been the re- 

 ceptacle of many of those daring 

 spirits who had formed a resolution 

 to avail themselves of the discon- 

 tents of the people, to incite them 

 to insurrection. The dethrone- 

 ment of the King, and his impri- 

 sonment, had filled them with the 

 highest indignation ; but his trial 

 and execution had roused them to 

 suc!i a pitch of rage, that tliey were 



no 



