We were already in the chief square of Nantes, assured of our victory, and leading our men to one last attack, when a musket ball struck Cathelineau on the arm, and passing through the flesh entered his breast.

He was on foot, in front of the brave peasants whom he was leading, and they all saw him fall.
Oh, M.de Lescure, if you had heard the groan, the long wail of grief, which his poor followers from St.Florent uttered, when they saw their sainted leader fall before them, your ears would never forget the sound.
We raised him up between us, and carried him back to a part of the town which was in our hands, and from thence over the Pont Rousseau to Pirmil, where I left him for a while, and returned to the town, but I could not get the peasants to follow me again--that is, his peasants; and he was too weak to speak to them himself.

It was not till two hours after that he was able to speak a word." "And you lost all the advantage you had gained ?" asked de Lescure.
"We might still have been successful, for the blues would always rather run than fight when they have the choice, but the Prince de Talmont, in his eagerness, headed the fugitive rebels who were making for Savenay, and drove them back into the town; when there, they had no choice but to fight; indeed, their numbers were so much greater than our own, that they surrounded us.

Our hearts were nearly broken, and our arms were weak; it ended in our retreating to Pirmil, and leaving the town in the hands of the republicans." "How truly spoke that General who said, 'build a bridge of gold for a flying enemy!'" said de Lescure.
"And is Cathelineau's wound so surely mortal ?" asked Henri.
"The surgeon who examined him in Pirmil said so; indeed, Cathelineau never doubted it himself.

He told me, as soon as he could speak, that he should never live to see the Republic at an end.