The land was to be left without proprietors,
without a population, and without produce; it was to be converted into
a huge Golgotha, a burial-place for every thing that had life within it;
and then, when utterly purged by fire and massacre, it was to be given
up to new colonists, good children of the Republic, who should enjoy the
fertility of a land soaked with the blood of its former inhabitants.
Such was the deliberate resolution of the Committee of Public Safety,
and no time was lost in commencing the work of destruction.
Barrere, one of the members of the Committee, undertook to see the work
put in a proper train, and for this purpose he left Paris for the scene
of action. Westerman and Santerre accompanied him, and to them was
committed the task of accomplishing the wishes of the Committee. There
was already a republican army in La Vendee, under the command of General
Biron, but the troops of which it was composed were chiefly raw levies,
recruits lately collected by the conscription, without discipline, and,
in a great degree, without courage; but the men who were now brought to
carry on the war, were the best soldiers whom France could supply.
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