accused the Girondists of seeking to destroy the possibility of defence against the foreigner by the establishment of a loosely organised federal state, and even of being in alliance with the enemy, and of seeking to betray France to England. In the course of a few weeks the administrative authorities abandoned the attitude of even passive resistance against the Convention. A few hundred men advancing from Caen to Paris were defeated at Vernon on the Seine. Bordeaux, starved out, surrendered at discretion, and thus before the end of August there were none but royalists who continued to contest the authority of the Convention. ♦War in La Vendée.♦ The danger of the situation, nevertheless, remained great. The royalists, both in Lyons and Toulon, held out, and the rebellion in La Vendée became more formidable every day. In this department the destructive tendencies dominant in other parts of France were tempered by strong conservative instincts. No violent feeling of antagonism existed between nobles and peasants. The nobles lived at home and came into personal contact with the tenant-farmers. The country was wholly agricultural; there were few towns and no industries. The peasants, excessively credulous and superstitious, were easily led by their priests, and were ready to hazard the loss of whatever advantages the revolution brought them for the sake of keeping their faith intact. The attempt to deprive them of the priests to whom they were attached first rendered them hostile to the revolution. The attempt to carry out the forced levy of soldiers decreed in March was the immediate cause of insurrection. For the republic they had no sympathy, and refused to leave their homes to fight in its defence. A general rising took place, extending over the whole of La Vendée and part of Deux Sèvres. The Government, compelled to send every available soldier to the frontier, was quite unable to cope with the insurgents. Raw and undisciplined levies, hastily brought together in the neighbouring departments, were no match for them. The character of the country was that of an almost impregnable fortress. The interior, called the Bocage, was hilly, thickly wooded, and intersected by small streams flowing at the bottom of steep ravines. The villages lay far apart. Roads and lanes, often impassable for wheels, ran a tortuous course up and down-hill, between high hedges and forests of furze and broom. On the sea-coast the country, though flat, was readily defended, being marshy and cut up by wide ditches. A large portion of the population were poachers and smugglers, who were skilled marksmen, and the very men to carry on the guerilla warfare which now arose in every part of a country so inaccessible to the regular soldier. Defeat told heavily on the republicans, who lost stores and ammunition, missed their way in flight, and were cut down one by one by the peasantry. The Vendeans, on the other hand, if the enemy withstood their first onset, disappeared