No one could
be more zealous in the service of the King, and for the glory of La
Vendee, than was Jacques Chapeau. Jacques had been in Paris with his
master, and finding that all his fellow-servants in the metropolis were
admirers of the revolution, he had himself acquired a strong
revolutionary tendency. His party in Paris had been the extreme
Ultra-Democrats: he had been five or six times at the Jacobins, three
or four times at the Cordeliers; he had learnt to look on a lamp-rope
as the proper destination of an aristocrat, and considered himself equal
to anybody, bu his master, and his master's friends. On Henri's return
to La Vendee, he had imbued himself with a high tone of loyalty, without
any difficulty or constraint on his feelings; indeed, he was probably
unaware that he had changed his party: he had an appetite for strong
politics, was devotedly attached to his master, and had no prudential
misgivings whatsoever. He had already been present at one or two affairs
in which his party had been victorious, and war seemed to him twice more
exciting, twice more delightful than the French Opera, or even the
Jacobin Clubs.
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