Westerman had obtained guides to show him the road to Clisson. It was
about six o'clock in the evening when the advanced portion of his army,
consisting of three thousand men, had proceeded about a league from
Amaillou. He was himself riding nearly at the front of the column,
talking to his aide-de-camp and one of the guides, when he was startled
by hearing a noise as of disturbed branches in the hedge, only a few
feet in advance of the spot in which he was standing; he had not,
however, time to give an order, or speak a word on the subject, before
a long sudden gleam of fire flashed before his eyes; it was so near to
him that it almost blinded him: a cannon had been fired off close to his
face, and it was easy to track the fatal course of the ball; it had been
directed right along the road, and was glutted with carnage before its
strength was spent.
Nor did the cannon shot come alone: a fearful fire from about five
hundred muskets was poured from the hedge on either side, directly into
the road: the assailants were within a few feet of their enemy at the
moment they were firing, and every shot took effect.
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