CHAPTER II

ST. FLORENT

Nothing occurred in the provinces, subsequently called La Vendee, during
the autumn or winter of 1792 of sufficient notice to claim a place in
history, but during that time the feelings which afterwards occasioned
the revolt in that country, were every day becoming more ardent. The
people obstinately refused to attend the churches to which the
constitutional clergy had been appointed; indeed, these pastors had
found it all but impossible to live in the parishes assigned to them;
no one would take them as tenants; no servants would live with them; the
bakers and grocers would not deal with them; the tailors would not make
their clothes for them, nor the shoemakers shoes. During the week they
were debarred from all worldly commerce, and on Sundays they performed
their religious ceremonies between empty walls.

The banished priests, on the other hand, who were strictly forbidden to
perform any of the sacerdotal duties, continued among the trees and
rocks to collect their own congregations undiminished in number, and
much more than ordinarily zealous, in their religious duties; and with
the licence which such sylvan chapels were found to foster,
denunciations against the Republic, and prayers for the speedy
restoration of the monarchy, were mingled with the sacred observances.

The execution of Louis, in January, 1793, greatly increased the
attachment which was now felt in this locality to his family. In Nantes
and Angers, in Saumur, Thouars, and other towns in which the presence
of Republican forces commanded the adhesion of the inhabitants this