82] 
being able to overturn the republic, 
and restore the monarchy. 
But those, who had led them forth 
to this desperate attempt, did not 
despair to excite them to a second 
undertaking of the same nature. 
They held out every motive that had 
formerly been prevalent ; attachment 
to their religion, love of their kings, 
hatred to the present innovations. 
Multitudes were induced accord- 
ingly to list again under their ban- 
ners’: but the greater part remained 
quiet in their habitations, and the 
flower of the insurgents was not, as 
antecedently, composed of the Ven- 
deans, but of the mixed and numer- 
ous mass of the inhabitants of the 
several provinces of Britanny, Poi- 
tou, Maine, Anjou, and others lying 
on the barks of the Loire. 
Those who chiefly figured among 
them, were that body of men known 
by the appellation of Chouans, and 
whose origin and primitive trans- 
actions and character have already 
been noticed. From these, the whole 
insurrection now borrowed that de- 
nomination 3 and, as many of their 
actions had been marked with blood- 
thirstiness, as we'las rapacity, those 
who were united with them, in- 
curred the like imputation ; whence 
they became equaily dreaded and 
abhorred, and acquired the general 
name of plunderers and murderers 
among the adherents to the repub- 
lican party, of which their detesta- 
tion was no less notorious, as well 
as their zeal and readiness to doom 
its partisans to extermination, 
This reciprocal disposition was of 
course productive of many atrocious 
deeds. The republican soldiery 
shewed them little mercy, consider- 
ing them in hardly any other light 
than that of highway robbers. It 
became at last a war of reciprocal 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796. 
destruction, not only of men, but of 
whatever they possessed. Slaughter 
and conflagration went hand in © 
hand, and the country round pre- 
sented a picture of death and deso« 
Jation, No man nor family were 
sate in their houses: the repub-— 
lican soldiers broke into them, and 
massacred all they found. The op- 
posite parties waylayed each other 
on the roads, and gave no quarter. 
Their whole attention was employ- 
ed in framing and perpetrating those 
horrors, and executing every scheme 
of public and private vengeance. 
The pretext, for the commission 
of all those enormities, was the 
same on both sides: the royalists 
charged the republicans with having 
violated the late treaty, and these 
retorted the accusation. The truth 
was, that neither party much ap- 
proved of it, and had acceded to it, 
rather aS a suspension of hostilities, 
thanas an absolute pacification, in- 
tending to abide by the conditions 
agreed to, no longer than they 
found it convenient. Hence no 
confidence was established on either 
side, and they both watched each 
others motions with equal suspicion 
of their malevolence. 
After along fluctuation of fortune 
between the contending parties, 
the principal commander of the 
royalists, the famous Charette, en- 
countered a strong body of the re- 
publicans near Roche Suryan,on the 
twenty-eighth of December, 1795, 
and was totally defeated. Hismen 
were so completely routed, that he 
was unable to rally them. They fled 
from thé field in various direétions, 
and were so closely pursued, that 
they dispersed on every side, and 
he was never able again to embody 
them. He was compelled, for his 
own safety, to disguise himself like, 
1 a pea- 
