Siéyès, Rewbel, and the other members of the Committee of Public Safety, regarded these treaties with Prussia and Spain merely as steps towards the final goal they had in view, namely, the conclusion of a European peace ceding to France the Alps and the Rhine as her boundaries. After making peace with Prussia and Spain, they hoped to obtain the alliance of Prussia to aid them in crushing Austria in Germany, and the alliance of Spain to aid them in crushing England at sea. For the time, want of resources caused a practical cessation of hostilities on the Upper Rhine. The Austrian armies on the right bank, short of money and food, remained on the defensive. The French armies on the left bank lived with difficulty at the cost of the conquered territories, which, having long been the seat of war, were suffering extreme misery. Meanwhile, the attention of the Government was drawn towards the west, where war still smouldered in La Vendée, and where a new war had broken out north of the Loire. In the large forests and uncultivated tracts in which the provinces of Brittany, Maine, and Anjou abounded, many bands of insurgents appeared, composed of brigands, deserters from the armies, fugitive Vendeans, and returned emigrants. They were called ‘Chouans,’ after one of their leaders, a smuggler, who had himself received the nickname--derived from ‘chouette,’ a small owl--either from his surly, morose habits, or from his using the owl’s cry as a signal. Though without organisation, and under the conduct of a number of independent chiefs, the war proved as difficult to suppress as the war in La Vendée. In the autumn of 1794 it spread into Normandy, and threatened to assume the form of a general insurrection. The peasants, who resented the suppression of their religion and the persecution of their priests, when they did not join the marauders were in connivance with them. Raids were made on republican posts, supplies cut off from towns, and many isolated murders committed. In support of the movement, emigrants and priests came from England, bringing with them munitions of war, and money both in coin and forged assignats. So serious did the danger become, that the Committee appointed Hoche, at this time the most distinguished general whom the Republic possessed, to the command-in-chief of the forces north of the Loire. During the Terror, his services to his country had been requited by imprisonment, and but for Robespierre’s sudden destruction, he would have fallen a victim to the guillotine. Besides being an able soldier, Hoche was a sincere and patriotic man in both public and private life, single-minded, straightforward, and pure. The irksome and inglorious task now entrusted to him he carried out with characteristic firmness and moderation, and while taking severe measures for the repression of rebellion, he did all in his power to win the good-will of the inhabitants, by treating them justly and restoring discipline amongst his troops.