"
"Would that we could!" said de Lescure; "would that the spirit of
revolution was yet sufficiently quenched in France to allow us to follow
your advice; but there is much, very much to be done before a royalist
army can march from La Vendee to Paris; unthought of sufferings to be
endured, the blood of thousands to be sacrificed, before France will own
that she has been wrong in the experiment she has made. We must fight
our battles by inches, and be satisfied, if, when dying, we can think
that we have left to our children a probability of final victory.
Normandy and the Gironde may be unwilling to submit to the Jacobin
leaders, but they are as yet as warmly attached to the Republic as Paris
itself. And, Bonchamps, you little know the dispositions and character
of the men, who at our bidding have left their homes and come to Saumur,
if you think that at our bidding they will march to Paris; they are even
now burning to return home, to recount to their wives and children what
they have done.
"Not half the number that came to Saumur would leave the town with us on
the road to Paris; and before we could reach Tours, the army would have
melted away from us like snow from a mountain top, when the sun begins
to shine.
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