arliamentary
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 o