left affairs, in the financial embarrassment and in the deplorable state
of the armies, the First Consul felt the weight of a government that had
been so long disorganized and weak, pressing heavily on his shoulders. His
first care was to achieve the pacification of the west, always agitated by
royalist passions. For a moment the chiefs of the party thought it
possible to engage General Bonaparte in the service of the monarchical
restoration: they were speedily undeceived. But the First Consul knew how
to make use in Vendee of the influence of the former cure of St. Laud, the
Abbe Bernier; he made an appeal to the priests, who returned from all
parts to their provinces, "The ministers of a God of Peace," said the
proclamation of the 28th December, 1799, "will be the first promoters of
reconciliation and concord; let them speak to all hearts the language
which they learn in the temple of their Master! Let them enter temples
which will be reopened to them, and offer for their fellow-citizens the
sacrifice which shall expiate the crime of war and the blood which has
been made to flow!" Always in intimate unison with the religious sentiment
of the populace who fought under their orders, the Vendean chiefs
responded to this appeal, laying down their arms. In Brittany and in
Normandy, Georges Cadoudal and Frotte continued hostilities; severe
instructions were sent, first to General Hedouville, and then to General
Brune. "The Consuls think that the generals ought to shoot on the spot the
principal rebels taken with arms in hand. However cunning the Chouans may
be, they are not so much so as Arabs of the desert. The First Consul
believes that a salutary example would be given by burning two or three
large communes, chosen from among those who have behaved themselves most
badly." Six weeks later the insurrection was everywhere subdued; Frotte,
and his young aide-de-camp Toustain, had been shot; Bourmont had accepted
the offers of the First Consul, and enrolled himself in his service;
Georges Cadoudal resisted all the advances of him whom he was soon to
pursue with his hatred even to attempting a crime. "What a mistake I have