The tenth of June was settled on as the day on which the attack should be commenced, and their utmost efforts in the mean time were to be employed in raising recruits, arming and drilling them, and collecting ammunition and stores of war sufficient for so serious an operation.
For this purpose Cathelineau returned for a while to St.Florent.

M.
Charette was requested to bring up all the men he could collect from the Marais, a part of La Vendee which lies close upon the sea.

M.Bonchamps was invited to join them from Angers.

De Lescure returned to Fontenay, to ask the assistance of those who had been so successful there against the republicans; while Henri Larochejaquelin, was left at home in the Bocage, to secure the services of every available man from every village.
He had two comrades with him in his recruiting party; and though they were of very different characters, they were almost equally serviceable.
One was his friend and priest, the Cure of St.Laud, and the other was his servant, Jacques Chapeau.

The Cure had no scrupulous compunction in using his sacerdotal authority as a priest, when the temporal influence of Larochejaquelin, as landlord, was insufficient to induce a countryman to leave his wife and home to seek honour under the walls of Saumur.