Clad in a green riding-
habit, with a gray felt hat and a gauze veil, Madame galloped
between Madame de la Rochejaquelein and Madame de Charette. At her
arrival at Saint Hilaire, the Marquis de Foresta, Prefect of La
Vendec, said to her: "Madame does not like phrases; La Vendee does
not make them; it has but one sentiment and one cry to express it:
Long live the King! Long live Madame! Forever live the Bourbons!"
The peasants never wearied of admiring her intrepidity. When her
horse, excited by the cries and the beating of the drums, pranced
and reared, they were heard to say: "Oh! the brave little woman;
she is not frightened." A villager exclaimed: "I have never
regretted my old father so much as today; one day like this would
have repaid him for all the hardships he suffered."
Madame passed the night at the Chateau of Lagrange, the property
of the Marquis de Goulaine. On entering her chamber she found by
her bed a night-lamp, with this motto: "Rest tranquilly; La Vendee
is watching."
On the 3d of July, she visited the Champ des Mattes, where in 1815
the Marquis Louis de La Rochejaquelein was killed at the head of
the Vendeans in insurrection against Napoleon. The same day she
was at Bourbon-Vendee. The 5th of July, at the crossing of the
Quatre Chemins, in sight of the roads from Nantes, from Bourbon,
from Saumur, and from La Rochelle, she laid the first stone of a
monument to perpetuate the memory of the Vendean victories.
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