The appeal struck home to the heart or the ambitions of a cleric named Bernier.

This man was but a village priest of La Vendee: 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, Frotte, 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.
Frotte 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 Frotte ought to be shot_; and a recently published letter to Hedouville expresses the belief that _the punishment of that desperate leader will doubtless contribute to the complete pacification of the West_.[135] In the hope of gaining over the Chouans, Bonaparte required their chiefs to come to Paris, where they received the greatest consideration.