This last circumstance created a great deal of surprise, not so much
from the fact of the Bretons having taken up arms against the
Convention, as from a certain degree of mystery which were attached to
the men who were roving about the country. It appeared that they were
all under the control of one leader, whose name was not known in Laval,
but who was supposed to have taken an active part in many of the battles
fought on the other side of the river. His tactics, however, were very
different from those which had been practised in La Vendee. He never
took any prisoners, or showed any quarter; but slaughtered
indiscriminately every republican soldier that fell into his hands. He
encouraged his men to pillage the towns, where the inhabitants were
presumed to be favourable to the Convention; and this licence which he
allowed was the means of drawing many after him, who might not have been
very willing to fight merely for the honour of defending the throne.
After the custom of their country, which was different from that which
prevailed in Poitou and Anjou, these peasant-soldiers wore their long
flaxen hair hanging down over their shoulders, and were clothed in rough
dresses, made of the untanned skins of goats or sheep, with the hair on
the outside.
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