(1)
One: not counting the autonomists
(2) Indivisible: except for the separatists
| That was a good one! The usual
principle of making someone else carry the can for your own misdeeds. The Republic
generously offered peace to the conquered Vendée. To cries of "Vive le
Roi!", Charette was acclaimed at Nantes with no trouble from the patriots - that
tolerant bunch. But the despicable Charette was sharpening his dagger ready to stab the
Republic in the back. For him this peace was merely a truce, after which he intended to
play further tricks. This provided another opportunity to institute further severe
repressions, this time justified (like those Death Wish films, where Charles Bronson sets
himself up as an administrator of justice). But what remains hidden from today's pupils is the fact that the Republicans were playing a double game. At the time there was a general feeling that a restoration of the monarchy was imminent. Napoleon wrote in his Memoirs: "If the Bourbons had returned I would immediately have placed my sword at their service." (I haven't yet found the exact reference for this quotation). Those Republican generals who had not become too implicated began to seek a way of arranging safe conduct for themselves - but without going too far. These were uncertain times, after all. Future events proved them right to be cautious. Similar circumstances arose during World War II; the nearer Allied victory seemed, the more people rallied to the cause of the Resistance. |
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