Part 4 (1/2)

During the Vendean war, the royalists had been driven out of Clisson by the republicans, under the command of a ferocious jacobin. The town was pillaged and burnt before they quitted it. Twenty-seven females had, during the battle, concealed themselves among the ruins: when information of it was given to the troops, who had already quitted the place, they were ordered to return, and the whole of these unhappy women were thrown alive into a well, where they perished!!! It has since been filled up, and the lonely tree, just mentioned, now records the b.l.o.o.d.y and inhuman deed.

In the account of Clisson, by a late French author, no notice is taken of this circ.u.mstance. He merely observes, when mentioning the destruction of the place, after the de la Roche-Jaquelin had quitted it, ”Les Rives...o...b..agees de la Sevres, si seduisante par ses belles cascades et l'ensemble de ce paysage poetique, feroient de cette contree un sejour delicieux, si de tristes debris, qui heureus.e.m.e.nt disparoissent tous les jours, ne rappelaient encore le souvenir affligeant de nos discordes civiles. Les armees Revolutionnaires qui combattirent les Vendeens, en 1793 et en 1794, employerent inutilement pour les reduire le fer et le feu; la flamme atteignit les villes, les villages, les metairies, et jusqu'aux humbles chaumieres; et, dans ce vaste et epouvantable incendie, Clisson ne put echapper a une ruine complete. Jamais peut-etre cette pet.i.te ville ne se seroit entierement reedifie, sans une circonstance particuliere qui contribua puissamment a la faire renoitre de ces cendres”.

In the town of Clisson was born the celebrated Barin de la Galissonniere, Admiral of France, who fought the well-known action off Mahon, in the month of June, 1756, with Admiral Byng, who, in consequence of his conduct on that occasion, was brought to a court martial and shot. The French writers make the following absurd remark, as to the _cause_ of his fate: ”Les Anglais, furieux d'avoir ete vaincus par un Amiral Francois, firent fusiller l'Amiral Byng”. It is now well known that he was sacrificed to an unprincipled ministerial faction.

The ancient Chateau de Clisson is built on a rock, on the bank of the Sevres, facing the mouth of the river, called Le Moine, which empties itself into the Sevres at this place, so that the town of Clisson stands between the two rivers at their junction. An ancient bridge, from whence this view is taken, joins one part of the town to the other, and leads to the castle, which was once considered the barrier of Bretagne. The two rivers run over a bed of granite rock, which, in some places, forming a cataract, adds considerably to the surrounding scenery: large ma.s.ses of this rock in many parts seem as if piled up by nature for the purpose of giving it a more romantic effect. The whole forms a most picturesque object, when viewed from the opposite sh.o.r.e, from whence the sketch of the temple erected on the ruin of St.

Gilles is taken; and the remembrance of its recent fate throws over the scene a strong and melancholy interest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF CLISSON.]

The castle is supposed to have been first erected by the Romans, as the Province formed a part of the Gaule Aquitanique, under the Emperors Augustus and Adrian.

The French repaired it during the reign of Louis VIII. in 1223, under Olivier I. Sire de Clisson, as he is styled; and it was made a regular fortification, and surrounded by a wall a century after, by the Connetable: in 1464 the Duc de Bretagne, Francis II. entirely finished it.

The Sire de Clisson, Olivier I. who had served during one of the Crusades in Palestine, was knighted with several others, in 1218. ”Un nombre prodigieux de Seigneurs Anglais, Normands, Angevins, Manceaux, Tourangeaux, et Bretons, prirent la Croix; Le Pape, Innocent III.

envoya en Bretagne, en 1197, Helvain, Moine de St. Denis, pour y precher une croisade. Une grande quant.i.te de Bretons se laisserent conduire en Syrie par ce Moine; et, en 1218, plusieurs Seigneurs Bretons suivirent leur exemple, entre autres, Herve de Leon, Morvau, Vicomte du Fou, et le Sire de Clisson”.

From the construction of the towers and bastions, it is supposed that at his return from the Holy Land, he had copied the Syrian style of building; and one of the towers, which is represented in the sketch of the gateway of the Chateau de Clisson, is still called La Tour des Pelerins.

This tower, which has been used as a dungeon, is the most perfect of any remaining. In it are subterranean galleries, anciently used as a prison, and appropriated by the republicans to the same purpose. It is dreadful to think of the horrors that have been practised within its walls, in our own time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOUR des PeLERINS.]

From the top of this tower the prospect is very extensive, and, during the year 1793, when the republican army quartered themselves in it, a sentinel was placed there to give notice in case of the approach of an enemy. The historian of that period, speaking of the entrance to this tower, observes, in reference to the cruelties committed there in the Vendean war:

”Il existait au milieu de la derniere cour un tres beau puits, taille dans le roc et extremement profond: il est actuellement comble, et ma plume se refuse a tracer les scenes horribles qui ensanglanterent ce lieu en 1793 et en 1795, tristes et epouvantables effets des guerres civiles!”

This pa.s.sage alludes, I imagine, to the circ.u.mstance related in page 90. Within its walls are various inscriptions, many of them in characters so difficult to decypher, that they remain unknown. The following has been rendered into more modern French by Cerutti.

J'ai gravi, mesure ces ruines sublimes; Mon coeur s'en est emu! De nos vaillants aeux Tout y representait les tournois magnanimes, Ils semblaient reparoitre et combattre a mes yeux; J'entendois sous leurs coups retentir les abimes; Juge de leurs combats, idole de leur coeur, Du haut des tours, la dame admiroit le vainqueur.

Casques et boucliers, cuira.s.ses gigantesques, Cris d'armes, mot d'amour, devises de l'honneur, Carlets pour l'infidele ou pour le suborneur, Tout garde sur ces murs vraiment chevaleresques.

La memoire d'un siecle ou l'epee, ou la foi, Ou la galanterie etaient la seule loi.

Louis IX. and Blanche of Castille, his queen, retired to Clisson, at the time the English, under Henry III. penetrated into Poitou, and were received by Olivier de Clisson, who then garrisoned it.

In the war of the League, which convulsed the kingdom of France, Clisson remained faithful to Henry III. and during the early part of the reign of his successor Henry IV. The Protestants were there protected, and established themselves in the fauxbourg. From the period at which Henry IV. signed the edict at Nantes, 15th April, 1598, until the war of La Vendee, this celebrated fortress is no where mentioned by any of the French historians: it became neglected when the feudal system declined, and the republican army completed its ruin. The sad events of this period, and the destruction and carnage which followed, can never be effaced from the page of history. The ruined towns and villages prove the melancholy truth, that the general corruption of a nation prepares the way for general anarchy, and that the blindness of political rage is always more vindictive than even private hatred.

I can never sufficiently lament the absence, at this time, of Madame de La Roche-Jaquelin from the country, as she occasionally resides in the neighbourhood, since the restoration of her property, (although her once n.o.ble residence is now in a state of ruin,) occupying a small chateau at some small distance, which had partly escaped the fire and destruction that had been fatal to most houses in the district. Who can read the interesting memoirs of this Lady, and not sympathize in the sufferings of herself, and of those brave and loyal people whose heroic struggle against their republican oppressors lasted with little intermission from the overthrow of the monarchy until its final restoration? Among the number of heroic females who, like Madame de la Roche-Jaquelin, thus distinguished themselves, was Madame de La Rochefoucault who, like her admirer Charette, was put to death at Nantes. This lady, of an ancient and n.o.ble family, and of great beauty, signalized herself on various occasions, but being taken prisoner at the battle of the Moulin aux Chevres, she was immediately shot!

[Ill.u.s.tration: MILL AUX CHeVRES.]

The whole history of this terrible war is filled with the n.o.ble devotion of heroic females. The chiefs were attended in the most sanguinary battles by ladies, who had themselves ornamented their standards with loyal and chivalrous emblems of the cause for which they were prepared to sacrifice themselves, and who were frequently seen rallying the broken troops, and falling, covered with wounds, by the hands of their enemies!

The annexed view of the Moulin aux Chevres, which is rendered interesting from the account given by Madame de la Roche-Jaquelin of the battle fought near it, will convey a tolerable idea of the scenery of the country.

The prodigious growth of the willow tree in Bretagne, is such as to claim the peculiar notice of travellers: here they attain a gigantic height, no where else to be seen. Batard, in his ”_Notices sur les Vegetaux_” mentions one in the commune of Pommeraie in the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt de Beaupreau, whose age was supposed to be nearly two thousand years. Within the Chateau at Clisson are some very old ones, but the finest I observed were at the Moulin aux Chevres.

CHAP. VI.

LIMITS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE OF LE BOCAGE. MODE OF WARFARE PRACTISED BY THE VENDEANS.