SOUTERRAINS
rebellion. The subsoil of every forest was a sort of sponge, pierced and traversed in all directions by a secret highway of mines, cells and galleries. Each of these blind cells could shelter five or six men. Usually the cover, made of moss and branches, was so artistically fashioned that, although impossible on the outside to distinguish it from the surrounding turf, it was very easy to open and close from the inside. In several of these forests and woods there were not only subterranean villages grouped about the burrow of the chief, but also actual hamlets of low huts hidden under the trees. These underground belligerents were kept perfectly informed of what was going on. Nothing could be more rapid, nothing more mysterious, than their means of communication. Sometimes they raised the cover of their hiding-places and listened to hear if there was fighting in the distance." He mentions the ability of the ambushed men to spring up, as it were, under the feet of the armies sent against them. And to show the numbers of the concealed forces, he continues: "There are in existence lists which enable one to understand the powerful organisation of that vast peasant rebellion. In Isle-et-Villaine, in the forest of Pertre, not a human trace was to be found, yet there were collected 6000 men under Focard. In the forest of Meullac, in Morhiban, not a soul was to be seen, yet it held 8000 men. These deceptive copses were filled with fighters, lurking in an underground labyrinth."
On March 26, 1807, Napoleon demanded a fresh conscription of 80,000 men. This was the third levy that had been called for since the Prussian War began. The three conscriptions supplied no less than 240,000 men in seven months, and the call for the third produced consternation throughout France. The number of young men who reached the age of eighteen annually in half a year, more than the entire annual generation, had been swept off to lay their bones in the East of Europe. Great numbers of young
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