to defend, is a dangerous spot for assailants.
The Breton peasant thinks he improves his fallow land by encouraging the
growth of gorse, a shrub so well treated in these regions that it soon
attains the height of a man. This delusion, worthy of a population which
puts its manure on the highest spot in the courtyard, has covered the
soil to a proportion of one fourth with masses of gorse, in the midst
of which a thousand men might ambush. Also there is scarcely a field
without a number of old apple-trees, the fruit being used for cider,
which kill the vegetation wherever their branches cover the ground. Now,
if the reader will reflect on the small extent of open ground within
these hedges and large trees whose hungry roots impoverish the soil, he
will have an idea of the cultivation and general character of the region
through which Mademoiselle de Verneuil was now passing.

It is difficult to say whether the object of these enclosures is to
avoid all disputes of possession, or whether the custom is a lazy one of
keeping the cattle from straying, without the trouble of watching them;
at any rate such formidable barriers are permanent obstacles, which make
these regions impenetrable and ordinary warfare impossible. There lies
the whole secret of the Chouan war. Mademoiselle de Verneuil saw plainly
the necessity the Republic was under to strangle the disaffection by
means of police and by negotiation, rather than by a useless employment
of military force. What could be done, in fact, with a people wise
enough to despise the possession of towns, and hold to that of an open
country already furnished with indestructible fortifications? Surely,
nothing except negotiate; especially as the whole active strength of
these deluded peasants lay in a single able and enterprising leader. She
admired the genius of the minister who, sitting in his study, had
been able to grasp the true way of procuring peace. She thought she
understood the considerations which act on the minds of men powerful
enough to take a bird's-eye view of an empire; men whose actions,
criminal in the eyes of the masses, are the outcome of a vast and
intelligent thought. There is in these terrible souls some mysterious
blending of the force of fate and that of destiny, some prescience which
suddenly elevates them above their fellows; the masses seek them for a
time in their own ranks, then they raise their eyes and see these lordly
souls above them.

Such reflectio