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THE CHOUANS
THE CHOUANS HONORE DE BALZAC I
AN AMBUSCADE
Early in the year VIII. at the beginning of Vendemiaire or to
conform to our own calendar towards the close of September 1799 a
hundred or so of peasants and a large number of citizens who had left
Fougeres in the morning on their way to Mayenne were going up the
little mountain of La Pelerine half-way between Fougeres and Ernee a
small town where travellers along that road are in the habit of
resting. This company divided into groups that were more or less
numerous presented a collection of such fantastic costumes and a
mixture of individuals belonging to so many and diverse localities and
professions that it will be well to describe their characteristic
differences in order to give to this history the vivid local coloring
to which so much value is attached in these days--though some critics
do assert that it injures the representation of sentiments.
Many of the peasants in fact the greater number were barefooted and
wore no other garments than a large goatskin which covered them from
the neck to the knees and trousers of white and very coarse linen
the ill-woven texture of which betrayed the slovenly industrial habits
of the region. The straight locks of their long hair mingling with
those of the goatskin hid their faces which were bent on the ground
so completely that the garment might have been thought their own skin
and they themselves mistaken at first sight for a species of the
animal which served them as clothing. But through this tangle of hair
their eyes were presently seen to shine like dew-drops in a thicket
and their glances full of human intelligence caused fear rather than
pleasure to those who met them. Their heads were covered with a dirty
head-gear of red flannel not unlike the Phrygian cap which the
Republic had lately adopted as an emblem of liberty. Each man carried
over his shoulder a heavy stick of knotted oak at the end of which
hung a linen bag with little in it. Some wore over the red cap a
coarse felt hat with a broad brim adorned by a sort of woollen
chenille of many colors which was fastened round it. Others were
clothed entirely in the coarse linen of which the trousers and wallets
of all were made and showed nothing that was distinctive of the new
order of civilization. Their long hair fell upon the collar of a round
jacket with square pockets which reached to the hips only a garment
peculiar to the peasantry of western France. Beneath this jacket
which was worn open a waistcoat of the same linen with large buttons
was visible. Some of the company marched in wooden shoes; others by
way of economy carried them in their hand. This costume soiled by
long usage blackened with sweat and dust and less original than that
of the other men had the historic merit of serving as a transition
between the goatskins and the brilliant almost sumptuous dress of a
few individuals dispersed here and there among the groups where they
shone like flowers. In fact the blue linen trousers of these last
and their red or yellow waistcoats adorned with two parallel rows of
brass buttons and not unlike breast-plates stood out as vividly among
the white linen and shaggy skins of their companions as the corn-
flowers and poppies in a wheat-field. Some of them wore wooden shoes
which the peasants of Brittany make for themselves; but the greater
number had heavy hobnailed boots and coats of coarse cloth cut in the
fashion of the old regime the shape of which the peasants have
religiously retained even to the present day. The collars of their
shirts were held together by buttons in the shape of hearts or
anchors. The wallets of these men seemed to be better than those of
their companions and several of them added to their marching outfit a
flask probably full of brandy slung round their necks by a bit of
twine. A few burgesses were to be seen in the midst of these semi-
savages as if to show the extremes of civilization in this region.
Wearing round hats or flapping brims or caps high-topped boots or
shoes and gaiters they exhibited as many and as remarkable
differences in their costume as the peasants themselves. About a dozen
of them wore the republican jacket known by the name of "la
carmagnole." Others well-to-do mechanics no doubt were clothed from
head to foot in one color. Those who had most pretension to their
dress wore swallow-tail coats or surtouts of blue or green cloth more
or less defaced. These last evidently characters marched in boots of
various kinds swinging heavy canes with the air and manner of those
who take heart under misfortune. A few heads carefully powdered and
some queues tolerably well braided showed the sort of care which a
beginning of education or prosperity inspires. A casual spectator
observing these men all surprised to find themselves in one another's
company would have thought them the inhabitants of a village driven
out by a conflagration. But the period and the region in which they
were gave an altogether different interest to this body of men. Any
one initiated into the secrets of the civil discords which were then
agitating the whole of France could easily have distinguished the few
individuals on whose fidelity the Republic might count among these
groups almost entirely made up of men who four years earlier were at
war with her.
One other and rather noticeable sign left no doubt upon the opinions
which divided the detachment. The Republicans alone marched with an
air of gaiety. As to the other individuals of the troop if their
clothes showed marked differences their faces at least and their
attitudes wore a uniform expression of ill-fortune. Citizens and
peasantry their faces all bore the imprint of deepest melancholy;
their silence had something sullen in it; they all seemed crushed
under the yoke of a single thought terrible no doubt but carefully
concealed for their faces were impenetrable the slowness of their
gait alone betraying their inward communings. From time to time a few
of them noticeable for the rosaries hanging from their necks
(dangerous as it was to carry that sign of a religion which was
suppressed rather than abolished) shook their long hair and raised
their heads defiantly. They covertly examined the woods and paths
and masses of rock which flanked the road after the manner of a dog
with his nose to the wind trying to scent his game; and then hearing
nothing but the monotonous tramp of the silent company they lowered
their heads once more with the old expression of despair like
criminals on their way to the galleys to live or die.
The march of this column upon Mayenne the heterogeneous elements of
which it was composed and the divers sentiments which evidently
pervaded it will explain the presence of another troop which formed
the head of the detachment. About a hundred and fifty soldiers with
arms and baggage marched in the advance commanded by the /chief of a
half-brigade/. We may mention here for the benefit of those who did
not witness the drama of the Revolution that this title was made to
supersede that of colonel proscribed by patriots as too aristocratic.
These soldiers belonged to a demi-brigade of infantry quartered at
Mayenne. During these troublous times the inhabitants of the west of
France called all the soldiers of the Republic "Blues." This nickname
came originally from their blue and red uniforms the memory of which
is still so fresh as to render a description superfluous. A detachment
of the Blues was therefore on this occasion escorting a body of
recruits or rather conscripts all displeased at being taken to
Mayenne where military discipline was about to force upon them the
uniformity of thought clothing and gait which they now lacked
entirely.
This column was a contingent slowly and with difficulty raised in the
district of Fougeres from which it was due under the levy ordered by
the executive Directory of the Republic on the preceding 10th
Messidor. The government had asked for a hundred million of francs and
a hundred thousand men as immediate reinforcements for the armies then
fighting the Austrians in Italy the Prussians in Germany and menaced
in Switzerland by the Russians in whom Suwarow had inspired hopes of
the conquest of France. The departments of the West known under the
name of La Vendee Brittany and a portion of Lower Normandy which
had been tranquil for the last three years (thanks to the action of
General Hoche) after a struggle lasting nearly four seemed to have
seized this new occasion of danger to the nation to break out again.
In presence of such aggressions the Republic recovered its pristine
energy. It provided in the first place for the defence of the
threatened departments by giving the responsibility to the loyal and
patriotic portion of the inhabitants. In fact the government in
Paris having neither troops nor money to send to the interior evaded
the difficulty by a parliamentary gasconade. Not being able to send
material aid to the faithful citizens of the insurgent departments it
gave them its "confidence." Possibly the government hoped that this
measure by arming the insurgents against each other would stifle the
insurrection at its birth. This ordinance the cause of future fatal
reprisals was thus worded: "Independent companies of troops shall be
organized in the Western departments." This impolitic step drove the
West as a body into so hostile an attitude that the Directory
despaired of immediately subduing it. Consequently it asked the
Assemblies to pass certain special measures relating to the
independent companies authorized by the ordinance. In response to this
request a new law had been promulgated a few days before this history
begins organizing into regular legions the various weak and scattered
companies. These legions were to bear the names of the departments--
Sarthe Orne Mayenne Ille-et-Vilaine Morbihan Loire-Inferieure
and Maine-et-Loire. "These legions" said the law "will be specially
employed to fight the Chouans and cannot under any pretence be sent
to the frontier."
The foregoing irksome details will explain both the weakness of the
Directory and the movement of this troop of men under escort of the
Blues. It may not be superfluous to add that these finely patriotic
Directorial decrees had no realization beyond their insertion among
the statutes. No longer restrained as formerly by great moral ideas
by patriotism nor by terror which enforced their execution these
later decrees of the Republic created millions and drafted soldiers
without the slightest benefit accruing to its exchequer or its armies.
The mainspring of the Revolution was worn-out by clumsy handling and
the application of the laws took the impress of circumstances instead
of controlling them.
The departments of Mayenne and Ille-et-Vilaine were at this time under
the command of an old officer who judging on the spot of the measures
that were most opportune to take was anxious to wring from Brittany
every one of her contingents more especially that of Fougeres which
was known to be a hot-bed of "Chouannerie." He hoped by this means to
weaken its strength in these formidable districts. This devoted
soldier made use of the illusory provisions of the new law to declare
that he would equip and arm at once all recruits and he announced
that he held at their disposal the one month's advanced pay promised
by the government to these exceptional levies. Though Brittany had
hitherto refused all kinds of military service under the Republic the
levies were made under the new law on the faith of its promises and
with such promptness that even the commander was startled. But he was
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