This was quite possible, for at the lower end of the long littered table, sitting sideways as men who have but temporarily dropped into a place there, were Gilbert and M. de Royrand. Three other leaders were there also. He who sat with his hands outspread upon a map to keep it in position was the “saint of Poitou,” the Marquis de Lescure, whom, with his young kinsman, Louis had saluted that day in the Tuileries. Over him bent the only roturier of the party, Stofflet, the gamekeeper, who had raised the parishes round Maulevrier. Behind, leaning upon his sword, and pulling impatiently with his teeth at a glove, stood the Chevalier de Charette, hawk-faced and implacable, newly come from the Marais to join the _grande armée_. “Was ever a house so full of generals!” whispered Louis half mockingly. “. . . Your pardon, Henri: I forgot you were all but one yourself!” And the château had been even fuller of these unusual guests. Last night, the night of the council of war which had caused so much disorder in the library, it had harboured not only those now present, but the general-in-chief himself, the Marquis d’Elbée, and the Marquis de Donnissan, both of whom were now gone forth to their men. Many other chiefs had clattered in and out: Bernard de Marigny, the hot-tempered, who commanded the artillery; Forestier, who led the somewhat scanty cavalry; D’Autichamp and the Prince de Talmont, bearer of a famous name, lieutenants of the wounded Marquis de Bonchamps, the only leader of note who was absent; De Couëtus, Joly, Savin, Charette’s subordinates. For on this 13th day of August (harvest being over), seasoned by an almost unbroken career of victory that was blotted only by their costly defeat at Nantes, masters at present of all their territory, but threatened, from their very success, by the Convention’s extremest measures of hostility, the Vendean hosts had gathered to strike a united blow; and the little cathedral town of Luçon, some fifteen miles to the southward, had been selected as the object of attack.