Many of those who had formed the former garrison of Saumur, were now with the army; men whom Chapeau and his assistants had shaven, men still bald, and smarting from the indignity to which they had been subjected.  They wreaked their vengeance on the scene of their disgrace, and on all those who had in any way lent, or were suspected to have lent, their aid to its consummation.  The furniture of the Town-hall was broken in pieces; the barbers’ shops were ransacked, and their razors, brushes, and basins scattered through the street; nor was this the worst; one poor wretch was recognized who had himself wielded a razor on the occasion; he was dragged from his little shop by those on whom he had operated, and was swung up by his neck from a lamp-iron in the sight of his wife and children, who had followed his persecutors through the street.  The poor woman pleaded on her knees for the life of her husband, as a wife can plead for the life of him whom she loves better than the whole world.  She offered all her little wealth and her prayers; she supplicated them with tears and with blessings; she seized hold of the knees of the wretch who held the rope, and implored him by his remembrance of his father, by his regard for his own wife, his love for his own children, to spare to her the father of her infants; but she asked in vain; the man, feeling that his legs were encumbered, spurned the woman from him with his foot, and kept his hand tight upon the lamp-rope till the dying convulsions of the poor barber had ceased.

No notice was taken by the republican Generals of this murder; at any rate no punishment followed it; the next morning the army resumed its march, and left the town hated, cursed, feared, and yet obeyed.  The people were now royalists in their hearts, but they did not dare to express their feelings even in whispers to each other, so frightful to them was the vengeance of the Republic.  There was much policy in the fearful cruelty of the Jacobins; it was the only means by which they could have retained their power for a month.

The republicans marched on from Saumur to Montreuil, and from Montreuil to Thouars, and still found no one in arms to oppose them.  Here they separated; a small party, headed by Santerre and Denot, penetrated at once from Thouars into the Bocage, and made for the chateau of Durbelliere.  It was believed that both de Lescure and Larochejaquelin were there, and Santerre expected that by hurrying across the country with a small force, he would be able to take them both and burn the chateau, and afterwards rejoin Westerman at Chatillon.  Barrere, whose duties were not strictly those of a soldier, had not accompanied the army beyond Saumur.  Westerman and the main body of the army still continued southward till they reached Parthenay, from which place it was his intention to proceed through the revolted district, burning every village; utterly destroying the towns which had not proved themselves devoted to the Republic, and slaughtering the peasants, their wives, and children wherever he could find them.