The men waved banners and
standards. The women raised their little children in their arms
and said: "Look at her well; it's the mother of the Duke of
Bordeaux."
The people seemed to walk upon the water to get a nearer view of
Madame. Not a rock pushing out into the stream that was not
occupied. Where the Loire was too wide for the features of the
Princess to be seen from the shore, the dwellers on the banks had,
so to speak, brought them together, by forming in the middle of
the stream streets of boats, with their flags and their triumphal
arches. At a league from Saint Florent a rock juts into the water
of the Loire. Here was an aged Vendean, all alone, his white hair
fluttering in the wind. Erect upon the rock, he was holding a
white flag, and at his feet was a dog. It was, according to the
Moniteur, a symbol of faithful Vendee.
The same day, June 22, at seven in the evening, the Princess
reached Nantes. She passed on foot from the Port Maillard to the
Prefecture, and had difficulty in getting through the innumerable
multitude. The next day she was at Savenay, where, on leaving the
church, she paused to contemplate the monument raised to the
memory of the victims of the battle of the 23d of September, 1793.
The 24th, she went to Saint Anne d'Auray, a pilgrimage venerated
throughout all Brittany, and visited the Champ des Martyrs, the
little plain where thirty-three years before, the EMIGRES taken at
Quiberon had been shot, despite their capitulation.
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234