The royalists since the beginning of the revolt
had always shewn courage and determination in action; but they had never
before been collected in such numbers, or combated with forces so fully
prepared for resistance, as those whom they had so signally conquered
at Saumur. The Convention began to be aware that some strong effort
would be necessary to quell the spirit of the Vendeans. France at the
time was surrounded by hostile troops. At the moment in which the
republicans were flying from the royalists at Saumur, the soldiers of
the Convention were marching out of Valenciennes, that fortified city
having been taken by the united arms of Austria and England. Conde also
had fallen, and on the Rhine, the French troops who had occupied Mayence
with so much triumph, were again on the point of being driven from it
by the Prussians.
The Committee of Public Safety, then the repository of the supreme power
in Paris, was aware that unless the loyalty of La Vendee was utterly
exterminated, the royalists of that district would sooner or later join
themselves to the allies, and become the nucleus of an overpowering
aristocratic party in France.
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