In the middle of October Kleber, largely reinforced, advanced with 25,000 men, and Bonchamps made up his mind that the time had come to retreat into Brittany. He posted a detachment to secure the passage of the Loire at St. Laurent, and fell back with his whole force to Cholet, whilst he sent warning to Charette of the decisive hour. There, on October 16, he fought his last fight. D'Elbee was shot through the body. He was carried in safety to Noirmoutier, and still lingered when the Republicans recovered the island in January. His last conversation with his conqueror, before he suffered death, is of the highest value for this history. Lescure had already received a bullet through the head, and at Cholet, Bonchamps was wounded mortally. But there had been a moment in the day during which fortune wavered, and the lost cause owed its ruin to the absence of Charette. Stofflet and La Rochejaquelein led the retreat from Cholet to the Loire. It was a day's march, and there was no pursuit. Bonchamps was still living when they came to the river, and still able to give one last order. Four thousand five hundred prisoners had been brought from Cholet; they were shut up in the church at St. Laurent, and the officers agreed that they must be put to death. At first, the Convention had not allowed the men whom the royalists released to serve again. But these amenities of civilised war had long been abolished; and the prisoners were sure to be employed against the captors who spared them. Bonchamps gave these men their lives, and on the same day he died. When, at the same moment, d'Elbee, Lescure and Bonchamps had disappeared, La Rochejaquelein assumed the command, Kleber, whom he repulsed at Laval, described him as a very able officer; but he led the army into the country beyond the Loire without a definite purpose. The Prince de Talmond, who was a La Tremoille, promised that when they came near the domains of his family, the expected Bretons would come in. More important was the appearance of two peasants carrying a stick. For the peasants were _emigres_ disguised, and their stick contained letters from Whitehall, in which Pitt undertook to help them if they succeeded in occupying a seaport; and he recommended Granville, which stands on a promontory not far from French Saint Michael's Mount. The messengers declined to confirm the encouragement they brought; but La Rochejaquelein, heavily hampered with thousands of women and children who had lost their homes, made his way across to the sea, and attacked the fortifications of the place. He assaulted in vain; and although Jersey listened to the cannonade, no ships came. The last hope had now gone; and the remnant of the great army, cursing the English, turned back towards their own country. Some thousands of Bretons had joined, and Stofflet still drove the republicans before him. With La Rochejaquelein and Sapinaud he crossed the Loire in a small boat. The army found the