The feeling that the Revolution was the fruit of centuries of oppression; and that, terrible as were the excesses committed in the name of liberty, the cause of the Revolution was still the cause of the peoples of Europe, had created a party sufficiently powerful to hamper the ministry. Moreover, the government was badly informed in every respect by its agents in France, and had no idea of the extent of the rising in La Vendee, or how nobly the people there had been defending themselves against the whole force of France. It is not too much to say that had England, at this time, landed twenty thousand troops in Brittany or La Vendee, the whole course of events in Europe would have been changed. The French Revolution would have been crushed before it became formidable to Europe, and countless millions of money and millions of lives would have been saved. Throughout France there was a considerable portion of the population who would have rejoiced in the overthrow of the Republic, for even in the large towns its crimes had provoked reaction. Toulon had opened its gates to the English. Lyons was in arms against the Republic. Normandy's discontent was general, and its peasantry would have joined those of Brittany and La Vendee, had there been but a fair prospect of success. England, however, did nothing, but stood passive until the peasantry of La Vendee were all but exterminated; and indeed, added to their misfortunes by promising aid that never was sent, and thus encouraging them to maintain a resistance that added to the exasperation of their enemies, and to their own misfortunes and sufferings. "What are we going to do?" Patsey asked, as her husband and Leigh returned from the meeting. "That is more than anyone can say," Jean replied. "We shall, for the present, move north. We are like a flight of locusts. We must move since we must eat, and no district could furnish subsistence for eighty thousand people, for more than a day or two. "There can be no doubt that the impulse to cross the Loire was a mad one. On the other side we at least knew the country, and it would have been far better to have died fighting, there, than to throw ourselves across the river. It was well nigh a miracle that we got across, and it will need nothing short of a miracle to get us back again. "Of one thing we may be sure: the whole host of our enemies will, by this time, be in movement. We should never have got across, had they dreamed that such was our intention. Now that we have done it, you may be sure that they will strain every effort to prevent us from returning. Probably, by this time, half their forces are marching to cross at Nantes. The other half are pressing on to Saumur. In three or four days they will be united again, and will be between us and the river.