im. The young soldier had accepted the
fearful responsibility with the greatest reluctance. He, and those
around him, saw plainly enough that the only hope of escape from
annihilation was the landing of a British force to their
assistance. Unhappily, however, England had not as yet awoke to the
tremendous nature of the struggle that was going on. Her army was a
small one; and her fleet, as yet, had not attained the dimensions
that were, before many years, to render her the unquestioned
mistress of the seas.

The feeling that the Revolution was the fruit of centuries of
oppression; and that, terrible as were the excesses committed in
the name of liberty, the cause of the Revolution was still the
cause of the peoples of Europe, had created a party sufficiently
powerful to hamper the ministry. Moreover, the government was badly
informed in every respect by its agents in France, and had no idea
of the extent of the rising in La Vendee, or how nobly the people
there had been defending themselves against the whole force of
France. It is not too much to say that had England, at this time,
landed twenty thousand troops in Brittany or La Vendee, the whole
course of events in Europe would have been changed. The French
Revolution would have been crushed before it became formidable to
Europe, and countless millions of money and millions of lives would
have been saved.

Throughout France there was a considerable portion of the
population who would have rejoiced in the overthrow of the
Republic, for even in the large towns its crimes had provoked
reaction. Toulon had opened its gates to the English. Lyons was in
arms against the Republic. Normandy's discontent was general, and
its peasantry would have joined those of Brittany and La Vendee,
had there been but a fair prospect of success.

England, however, did nothing, but stood passive until the
peasantry of La Vendee were all but exterminated; and indeed, added
to their misfortunes by promising aid that never was sent, and thus
encouraging them to maintain a resistance that added to the
exasperation of their enemies, and to their own misfortunes and
sufferings.

"What are we going to do?" Patsey asked, as her husband and Leigh
returned from the meeting.

"That is more than anyone can say," Jean replied. "We shall, for
the present, move north. We are like a flight of locusts. We must
move since we must eat, and no district could furnish subsistence
for eighty thousand people