intrepid, inspired leader of the Vendee, whose sentiments became his own
--"If I advance, follow me; if I retreat, kill me; if I fall, avenge me."

He had proven himself daring, courageous, resourceful. His unvarying
gaiety of spirits infected the simple peasants with a rebounding energy;
his fearlessness inspired their confidence; his kindness to the wounded,
friend or foe, his mercy to prisoners, the respect he showed devoted
priests who shared with the peasants the perils of war, made him beloved.

From the first all the leaders trusted him, and he sprang in a day, as
had done the peasants Cathelineau, d'Elbee, and Stofflet, or gentlemen
like Lescure and Bonchamp, and noble fighters like d'Antichamp and the
Prince of Talmont, to an outstanding position in the Royalist army.
Again and again he had been engaged in perilous sorties and leading
forlorn hopes. He had now come from the splendid victory at Saumur to
urge his kinsman, the Duc de Bercy, to join the Royalists.

He had powerful arguments to lay before a nobleman the whole traditions
of whose house were of constant alliance with the Crown of France, whose
very duchy had been the gift of a French monarch. Detricand had not seen
the Duke since he was a lad at Versailles, and there would be much in his
favour, for of all the Vaufontaines the Duke had reason to dislike him
least, and some winning power in him had of late grown deep and
penetrating.

When the Duke entered upon him in the library, he was under the immediate
influence of a stimulating talk with Philip d'Avranche and the chief
officers of the duchy. With the memory of past feuds and hatreds in his
mind, and predisposed against any Vaufontaine, his greeting was
courteously disdainful, his manner preoccupied.