"3. A large proportion of the nobles who meet together to discuss the means for renewing civil war enjoy very considerable pensions, which the Government continues paying them; nothing would be easier than to catch them in the very act, and then the Government could justifiably cease paying these pensions, and divide the money in equal proportions between the old Vendean and Republican soldiers, whose mutual hatred would gradually die down as quarter days succeeded one another. "In this way, there would in the future be no possibility of fresh Vendean risings, since on the slightest outbreak the Government would only have to stretch out its arm and to scatter troops along the main roads to separate gatherings. "If people think that these men, enlightened in their views since 1792, have reached the point of never rising again under the influence of fanaticism and superstition, they are strangely mistaken; even those that Bonaparte's conscription drew from their homes and took away out into the world have gradually lost their temporary enlightenment since they returned to their hearths again and resumed their primitive ignorance. I will cite one instance of this. I went shooting with a fine old soldier who had served a dozen years under Napoleon. On the slope of a hill near la Jarrie a stone was standing a dozen feet high that was in the shape of an inverted cone, touching the mountain by one of its upper edges and at its base, which was as narrow as the crown of a hat, resting on a large boulder of rock; although this stone weighed from seven and a half to ten tons, it was so perfectly balanced that a man could easily shake it with his hand. I thought it was a Druidical monument, but, not trusting to the false teaching of educated men, which so often is upset by the rude simplicity of peasants, I called to my companion and asked him what this stone was and who had put it there. "'The devil!' he replied, with a conviction which did not seem to fear the faintest denial on my side. "'The devil, did you say?' I repeated, in astonishment. "'Yes,' he replied. "'But what did he do it for?' "'You see from here the stream of la Maine ... over there down in the bottom of the valley?' "'Perfectly.' "'Well, then, you can make out a spot where one could cross it on stepping-stones which rise to the surface of the water were it not that just in the middle of these stones there is a gap.' "'Yes.' "'Well! that gap ought to be refilled by the rock we are now leaning against.' "'It is certainly hewn in such a way as to fit in exactly and to dissipate the effect of want of continuity caused by its absence.'