The peasants, therefore, driven to the wall, rebelled without forethought or plan; a desperate handful against the strength of new France. At remote points, with no concert whatever, hostilities began: on Sunday, March tenth, in Anjou, two days later in Lower Poitou; and months passed ere one knot of insurrectionists heard tidings of the other. With the populace at Maulevrier rose Stofflet, the swarthy game-keeper of the resident lord; Stofflet of the German accent, harsh and hard, big-nosed, unlettered, trusty, a keenly intelligent and masterful disciplinarian. But the noteworthiest leader was Jacques Cathelineau, “a painstaking, neighborly man,” wagoner, and vender of woollens. There had been a disturbance at Saint Florent over the drafting; the Government troops fired; the young recruits charged on their assailants and routed them, pillaging the municipality and burning the papers. Cathelineau of Pin-en-Mauges was kneading bread when he heard of it. “We must begin the war,” he murmured. His startled wife echoed his words, wailing: “Begin what war? Who will help you begin the war?” “God,” he answered quietly. Putting her aside, he wiped his arms, drew on his coat, and went out instantly to the market-place. That afternoon he attacked two Republican detachments and seized their ammunition, his small force augmenting on the march; in a few days it was one thousand strong, and carried Chollet. Cathelineau’s three brothers enlisted under his banner; in one short year all four were to be gathered into their stainless graves. He was called “the saint of Anjou,” and he deserved it; a man of truth, discretion, dignity, and sweetness, about whom the wounded crept to die.