She had begged him not
to go out into the town on the morning when he had been so instrumental
in saving his townsmen from the ignominy of being pressed into the
service of the Republic; and when he returned in the evening, crowned
with laurels, she had not congratulated him. She had uttered nothing but
evil bodings to him on the day when he first went to Durbelliere; and
when he returned from Saumur, chief General of all the forces of then
victorious La Vendee, she had refused to participate in the glories
which awaited him in his native town. On his departure to Nantes she had
prophesied to him his death, and when the tidings of his fall were first
brought to her, she merely said that she had expected it. The whole town
mourned openly for Cathelineau, except his mother. She wept for him in
silence and alone; but she wept for the honest, sturdy, hard--working
labourer whom she had reared beneath her roof, and who had been beguiled
away by vain people, to vain pursuits, which had ended in his death;
while others bewailed the fall of a great captain, who had conferred
honour on their town, and who, had he been spared, might have heaped
glory on his country.
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