Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/190



quitting Nantes, I walked for a day and two nights without stopping at any village, and my provisions were exhausted; still I went on hap-hazard, although decided on reaching Paris or the sea shore, hoping to get to sea in some ship, when I reached the first habitations of a town which appeared to have been lately the scene of a combat. The greater part of the houses were nothing but a heap of rubbish, blackened by fire, and all that surrounded the place had been entirely destroyed. Nothing was standing but the church tower, whence the clock was striking the hour for inhabitants who no longer existed. This scene of desolation presented at the same time the most whimsical occurrences. On the only piece of wall which remained belonging to an auberge, were still the words "Good entertainment for man and horse;"—there the soldiers were watering their horses in the holy-water vessels;—farther on, their companions were dancing to the tune of an organ with the countrywomen, who, ruined and wretched, had prostituted themselves to the Blues (republicans) for bread. By the traces of this war of extermination we might have thought ourselves in the midst of the wilds of America, or the oases of the desert, where barbarous tribes were cutting each others' throats with blind fury. Yet there had only been there, on both sides, Frenchmen: but every species of fanaticism made rendezvous there. I was in La Vendée, at Cholet.

The master of a wretched cabaret, thatched with broom, where I halted, gave me my cue, by asking me if I had come to Cholet for the next day's market. I answered in the affirmative, much astonished that one