Large bands of them ranged the woods of Brittany and La Vendee, until mobile columns were sent to sweep them into the barracks.
But in nearly the whole of France (Proper), Napoleon's name was still an unfailing talisman, appealing as it did to the two strongest instincts of the Celt, the clinging to the soil and the passion for heroic enterprise.

Thus it came about that the peasantry gave up their sons to be "food for cannon" with the same docility that was shown by soldiers who sank death-stricken into a snowy bed with no word of reproach to the author of their miseries.

A like obsequiousness was shown by the officials and legislators of France, who meekly listened to the Emperor's reproaches for their weakness in the Malet affair, and heard with mild surprise his denunciation against republican idealogy--_the cloudy metaphysics to which all the misfortunes of our fair France may be attributed_.

No tongue dared to utter the retort which must have fermented in every brain.[281] But his explanations and appeals did not satisfy every Frenchman.

Many were appalled at the frightful drain on the nation's strength.