De Lescure was unable to give him any actual assistance in his work; but his thoughtful brain, reflecting on all the difficulties of Henri’s situation, conceived how much they would be increased by the want of any absolute title to authority; he therefore determined, ill as he was, to invest him with the command-in-chief of the shattered army.

Early on the morning after their arrival he begged that all such men as had acted as chief officers among the Vendeans, and who were now in St. Florent, would form themselves into a council in his room, and that it might be proclaimed to the army that they were about to nominate a General-in-Chief.  The council was not so numerously attended as that which on a former occasion was held at Saumur.  As Peter Berrier had said, most of those who then sat around that council table were now dead, or were, at any rate, hors-de-combat.  Only four of the number were now present.  De Lescure was lying on his bed, and was a spectacle dreadful to look upon.  The hair had been all cut from his head.  His face was not only pale, but livid.  The greater portion of it had been enveloped in bandages, which he had partly removed with his own hand, that his mouth might be free, so that he could use his weak voice to address his comrades, perhaps for the last time.  He uttered neither complaint or groan, but the compressed lips, careworn cheeks, and sunken eyes, gave too certain signs of the agony which he suffered.  Henri was there, but he knew the proposal which his cousin was about to make, and he felt, not only that he was unequal to the heavy task which was about to be put on his shoulders, but also that there were still some among their number who were superior to him in skill, rank, and age, and who were to be excluded from the dangerous dignity by the partial admiration which was felt for himself He sat apart in a corner of the room, with his face buried in his handkerchief; his manly heart was overcome; and while de Lescure named him as the only person possessed of sufficient nerve and authority to give the Vendeans a chance of an escape from utter ruin, he was shedding tears like a child.

D’Autachamps and the Prince de Talmont were there also; men, who throughout the war had lent every energy to its furtherance.  At another time, and under other circumstances, they might have expressed indignation at being called on to serve under a man so much their junior; but de Lescure’s position checked, not only the expression of any such feeling, but the feeling itself.  They could not differ from a man who had lost so much in the cause, and vas now sealing his devotion with his life.  There were five or six others in the room; officers who were now well known in the army, whose courage history has not forgotten to record, but whose names are unnecessary to our tale.