“This requires a few words of explanation,” said Monsieur Alain, interrupting his narrative, “about an association which in those days made a great deal of noise.  I mean the ’Chauffeurs.’[*] Every province in the west of France was at that time more or less overrun with these ‘brigands,’ whose object was far less pillage than a resurrection of the royalist warfare.  They profited, so it was said, by the great number of ’refractories,’—­the name applied to those who evaded the conscription, which was at that time, as you probably know, enforced to actual abuse.

[*] Chauffeurs.  This name applies to royalists who robbed the
    mail-coaches conveying government funds, and levied tribute on those
    who bought the confiscated property of emigres at the West.  When
    the Thermidorian reaction began, after the fall of Robespierre,
    other companies of royalists, chiefly young nobles who had not
    emigrated, were formed at the South and East under various names,
    such as “The Avengers,” and “The Company of Jehu,” who stopped the
    diligences containing government money, which they transmitted to
    Brittany and La Vendee for the support of the royalist troops. 
    They regarded this as legitimate warfare, and were scrupulous not
    to touch private property.  When captured, however, they were tried
    and executed as highwaymen.—­TR.

“Between Mortagne and Rennes, and even beyond, as far as the banks of the Loire, nocturnal expeditions were organized, which attacked, especially in Normandy, the holders of property bought from the National domain.[*] These armed bands sent terror throughout those regions.  I am not misleading you when I ask you to observe that in certain departments the action of the laws was for a long time paralyzed.

[*] The National domain was the name given to the confiscated property
    of the emigres, which was sold from time to time at auction to
    the highest bidder.—­TR.

“These last echoes of the civil war made much less noise than you would imagine, accustomed as we are now to the frightful publicity given by the press to every trial, even the least important, whether political or individual.  The system of the Imperial government was that of all absolute governments.  The censor allowed nothing to be published in the matter of politics except accomplished facts, and those were travestied.  If you will take the trouble to look through files of the ‘Moniteur’ and the other newspapers of that time, even those of the West, you will not find a word about the four or five criminal trials which cost the lives of sixty or eighty ‘brigands.’  The term brigands, applied during the revolutionary period to the Vendeans, Chouans, and all those who took up arms for the house of Bourbon, was afterwards continued judicially under the Empire against all royalists accused of plots.  To some ardent and loyal natures the emperor and his government were the enemy; any form of warfare against them was legitimate.  I am only explaining to you these opinions, not justifying them.