All the civic authorities attended the ceremony. A procession, carrying this representative of Reason in its midst, marched to the Convention to the sound of music, and upon the demand of the municipal officers it was decreed that the Church of Notre Dame should thenceforth be converted into the Temple of Reason (November 10). From this time the churches of Paris were either closed or used as meeting-places, where disorderly crowds from time to time assembled to hear speeches made and songs sung in honour of Liberty and of Reason. ♦Destruction of the Vendean army.♦ While these strange scenes were being enacted in Paris, war on the frontiers, and war in the interior of France continued to be waged as fiercely as before. The allies, when they deferred invasion till the next campaign, had made the error of rendering no assistance to the royalist insurgents within France. England sent no aid to the Vendeans; Austria none to Lyons. Accordingly, in October, Lyons surrendered. Toulon, by admitting an English and Spanish fleet into its harbour, was enabled to lengthen out till the end of the year its isolated and hopeless resistance. In La Vendée the war on both sides was conducted with extreme ferocity. The Convention adopted a decree, brought in by the Committee of Public Safety, which ordered the generals to burn the forests and insurgent villages, to seize the corn and cattle, and to make prisoners of the women and children (August 1). The intention was to burn and starve the country out. But the undisciplined republican levies were repelled whenever they sought to make their way into the interior. The generals were incompetent and authority divided. The Commune, the Committee of Public Safety, and the Mountain, were severally represented by a number of agents and deputies in mission, who contended with one another for the direction of the war and gave support to different generals. The situation was at last changed by the arrival at Nantes of several thousand troops of the line who had formed the late garrison of Mainz, and who were bound by the terms of their capitulation not to fight against the allies for a year, but were not forbidden to fight against French insurgents. Led by one of their own officers, Kléber, these troops penetrated to the heart of Upper Vendée, driving before them the largest army the Vendeans ever brought together. At the same time forces marched from Saumur and other points to effect a junction with them. The retreating Vendeans were accompanied by a host of non-combatants, old men, women, and children, burnt out of their homes or flying for their lives. Forced back on the Loire, they made a stand at Chollet, but only to experience fresh defeat. A general flight was effected across the river in boats (October 20). By this time most of the chiefs were either dead or dying. La Rochejaquelein, a young noble, and Stofflet, a peasant, took the command. Compelled always to move onwards through scarcity