on the place of execution, to fix in their memories the recollection of the punishment that overtook the great criminal! History omits to tell us if the children of the sixteenth century were as fond of executions as those of the nineteenth. [1] The army corp which had evacuated Mayence and which was ordered to la Vendée was really only composed of ten thousand four hundred men. [2] Cæsar's _Commentaries_, I. iii. § 7. CHAPTER VIII Le Bocage--Its deep lanes and hedges--The Chouan tactics--Vendean horses and riders--Vendean politics--The Marquis de la Bretèche and his farmers--The means I suggested to prevent a fresh Chouannerie--The tottering stone--I leave la Jarrie--Adieux to my guide I have of course put on one side as well as I could, until now, particulars relating to statistics and the topography of the country; but one must come to it eventually. On the outskirts of Tiffanges, la Vendée is first seen with its undulating country, which proved so disastrous to us in the Chouan War. Let me be permitted to reproduce here a part of the report which I submitted to General La Fayette on my return to Paris, which report, as will be seen later, was also submitted to the inspection of King Louis-Philippe:-- "... In the first place, the word _Vendée_, politically speaking, comprises a much larger area of ground than it does topographically. And this was because the name of a single department christened a war which was really spread over four departments. So, under the collective name of Vendée the departments of Maine-et-Loire, Morbihan, Deux-Sèvres and la Vendée were all included. No other part of France at all resembles la Vendée; it is a country quite unique. But few main roads pass through it. I will speak further of them in due course. The other means of communication--and, consequently, those of commerce--consist of lanes of between four and five feet in width, edged on either side by steep banks, crowned by a quickset hedge trimmed to the height of a man, and at every twenty yards stand oak trees whose interlacing branches form an arbour over the road. Hedges bounding private fields intersect them at right angles here and there, thus forming enclosed spaces which hardly ever consist of more than one or two acres, always of an oblong shape. Each of these hedges has only one opening, called _échalier_, which is sometimes a kind of gate like those which enclose sheep-folds; more frequently it is made out of wood from the hedges themselves, and, set in the hedge, it does not look any different from the hedges themselves to the eye of a stranger, especially in winter. The native of the country will make straight for this hurdle, which he knows, but other persons have generally to go along all four sides of the fields before they can discover the way out. These hedges thoroughly