Thus the tragic forests of Brittany once more resumed their ancient rôle of servant and accomplice to revolution.

The subsoil of such a forest was like a madrepore pierced and intersected in all directions by a secret labyrinth of mines, cells, and galleries. Each of these hidden cells was large enough to shelter five or six men; the only difficulty was in breathing. Certain mysterious ciphers have been preserved that give us a clew to this powerful organization of the peasant rebellion. In Ille-et-Vilaine, in the forest of Pertre, where the Prince de Talmont had taken refuge, not a breath could be heard, not a trace of human life was visible; and yet Focard had there mustered six thousand men. In Morbihan, in the forest of Meulac, not a man of all the eight thousand there was to be seen. These two forests, le Pertre and Meulac, are not, however, to be reckoned among the great Breton forests. It would have been dangerous walking over their explosive soil. These treacherous copses, with their multitudes of combatants lurking in a sort of subterranean labyrinth, were like great black sponges, from which, beneath the pressure of Revolution’s giant foot, civil war gushed forth. Invisible battalions were lying in wait. This army, unknown to the world, wound its way along under the feet of the Republican armies, leaping out of the ground at times in vast numbers, and disappearing as suddenly, – possessing the power of vanishing at will no less than the gift of ubiquity. It was like the descending avalanche that leaves but a cloud of dust behind, colossi with a marvellous genius for contraction, giants in warfare, dwarfs in flight, jaguars with the habits of moles. Moreover, there were woods as well as forests. As the village ranks below the city, so the woods, bear a similar relation to the forests, which they serve to connect after the fashion of a labyrinth. Old castles, fortresses once upon a time, hamlets that had been camps, farms covered with ambushes and snares, divided by ditches and fenced in by trees, formed the meshes of the net in which the Republican armies were caught.

All this was called the Bocage.

There was the wood of Misdon, with a pond in its midst, held by Jean Chouan; the wood of Gennes, held by Taillefer; the wood of La Huisserie, held by Gouge-le-Bruant; the wood of La Charnie, held by Courtillé-le-Bâtard, called the apostle Saint Paul, chief of the camp of the Vache-Noire; the wood of Burgault, in possession of that enigmatical Monsieur Jacques, who was to meet with a mysterious death in the vault of Juvardeil; the wood of Charreau, where Pimousse and Petit-Prince, when attacked by the garrison of Châteauneuf, captured the grenadiers from the ranks of the Republicans in a hand-to-hand encounter; the wood of La Heureuserie, which witnessed the defeat of the military post of Longue-Faye; the wood of L’Aulne, whence the road between Rennes and Laval could be watched; the wood of La Gravelle, won by a Prince of La Tremoille in a bowling-match; the wood of Lorges in the Côtes-du-Nord, where Charles de Boishardy succeeded Bernard de Villeneuve; the wood of Bagnard, near Fontenay, where Lescure offered battle to Chalbos, – a challenge accepted by the latter although they were five to one against him; the wood of La Durondais, over which Alain le Redru and Hérispoux, sons of Charles the Bald, quarrelled in former times; the wood of Croque-loup, on the edge of that moor where Coupereau used to shear the prisoners; the wood of La Croix-Bataille, witness to the Homeric insults hurled against each other by Jambe d’Argent and Morière; the wood of La Saudraie, which the reader will remember was reconnoitred by the Paris battalion; and many others besides.

In several of these forests and woods there were not only subterranean villages grouped around the burrow-like headquarters of the chief, but actual hamlets composed of low cabins hidden under the trees in such numbers that the forest was often filled with them. Sometimes the smoke betrayed their presence. Two among these hamlets in the forest of Misdon have become famous, – Lorrière, near Létang, and the group of huts called La Rue-de-Bau, in the direction of Saint-Ouen-les-Toits.

The women lived in the huts, and the men in the caves. The galleries of the fairies and the old Celtic mines were utilized for purposes of warfare. Food was conveyed to the dwellers underground, and some there were who, forgotten, died of hunger. They, however, were awkward fellows, who had not sense enough to uncover their wells. This cover, usually made of moss and branches, and arranged so skilfully that it was impossible to distinguish it on the outside from the surrounding grass, was yet easily opened and closed from the inside. A den like this, known under the name of “la loge,” was hollowed out with great care, and the earth taken therefrom thrown into some neighboring pond. The inside walls and the floor were afterwards lined with ferns and moss. It was fairly comfortable, save for the lack of light, fire, bread, and air.

To rise from underground and appear among the living without due precaution, possibly to disinter themselves at an inappropriate moment, would be a serious business. They might chance to encounter an army on the march. Those were dangerous woods, snares with a double trap. The Blues dared not enter, and the Whites dared not come out.