PART THIRD.—IN VENDEE.
BOOK FIRST.
LA VENDEE.
CHAPTER I.
THE FORESTS.
At that time there were seven terrible forests in Brittany. The Véndèan war was a priestly revolt. The forests were an auxiliary to this revolt. The spirits of darkness give one another aid.
The seven Black Forests of Brittany were the forest of Fougères, which bars the way between Dol and Avranches; the forest of Princé, eight leagues in circumference; the forest of Paimpont, full of ravines and brooks, almost inaccessible from the side of Baignon, but easily penetrated from Concornet, a royalist market-town; the forest of Rennes, from which was heard the tocsin of the republican parishes, always numerous near the towns (it was there that Puysaye ruined Focard); the forest of Machecoul, where the wild beast Charette had his den; the forest of la Garnache, which belonged to la Trémoille, Gauvain, and the Rohans: the forest of Broceliande, which belonged to the fairies.
A nobleman in Brittany had the title of "Seigneur of the Seven Forests." It was the Viscount de Fontenay, a Breton prince.
For the Breton prince was entirely distinct from the French prince. The Rohans were Breton princes. Garnier de Saintes, in his report to the Convention, the fifteenth Nivose, year II, thus described the Prince de
