While thus removing one of the chief grievances of the Norman, Breton and Vendéan peasants, who had risen as much for their religion as for their king, he determined to crush their revolts. The north-west, and indeed parts of the south of France, were still simmering with rebellions and brigandage. In Normandy a daring and able leader named Frotté headed a considerable band of malcontents, and still more formidable were the Breton "Chouans" that followed the peasant leader Georges Cadoudal. This man was a born leader. Though but thirty years of age, his fierce courage had long marked him out as the first fighter of his race and creed. His features bespoke a bold, hearty spirit, and his massive frame defied fatigue and hardship. He struggled on; and in the autumn of 1799 fortune seemed about to favour the "whites": the revolt was spreading; and had a Bourbon prince landed in Brittany before Bonaparte returned from Egypt, the royalists might quite possibly have overthrown the Directory. But Bonaparte's daring changed the whole aspect of affairs. The news of the stroke of Brumaire gave the royalists pause. At first they believed that the First Consul would soon call back the king, and Bonaparte skilfully favoured this notion: he offered a pacification, of which some of the harassed peasants availed themselves. Georges himself for a time advised a reconciliation, and a meeting of the royalist leaders voted to a man that they desired "to have the king and you" (Bonaparte). One of them, Hyde de Neuville, had an interview with the First Consul at Paris, and has left on record his surprise at seeing the slight form of the man whose name was ringing through France. At the first glance he took him for a rather poorly dressed lackey; but when the general raised his eyes and searched him through and through with their eager fire, the royalist saw his error and fell under the spell of a gaze which few could endure unmoved. The interview brought no definite result.
Other overtures made by Bonaparte were more effective. True to his plan of dividing his enemies, he appealed to the clergy to end the civil strife. The appeal struck home to the heart or the ambitions of a cleric named Bernier. This man was but a village priest of La Vendée: yet his natural abilities gained him an ascendancy in the councils of the insurgents, which the First Consul was now victoriously to exploit. Whatever may have been Bernier's motives, he certainly acted with some duplicity. Without forewarning Cadoudal, Bourmont, Frotté, and other royalist leaders, he secretly persuaded the less combative leaders to accept the First Consul's terms; and a pacification was arranged (January 18th), In vain did Cadoudal rage against this treachery: in vain did he strive to break the armistice. Frotté in Normandy was the last to capitulate and the first to feel Bonaparte's vengeance: on a trumped-up charge of treachery he was hurried before a court-martial and shot. An order was sent from Paris for his pardon; but a letter which Bonaparte wrote to Brune on the day of the execution contains the ominous phrase: _By this time Frotté ought to be shot_; and a recently published letter to Hédouville expresses the belief that _the punishment of that desperate leader will doubtless contribute to the complete pacification of the West_.[135]