After a battle, they will want to hurry off to their homes.

They will obey the order to fight, but that is the only order one can rely upon their obeying.
"We are on the point of starting for Chollet.

It is a town where the people are devoted to the cause of the Convention.

At the last drawing for the militia they killed, without any pretext, a number of young men who had come, unarmed, into the town.

Many inhabitants of adjoining parishes have been seized and thrown in prison, charged only with being hostile to the Convention, and expressing horror at the murder of the king.
"The capture will produce an impression throughout the country.
They have three or four hundred dragoons there, and yesterday, we hear, they called in the National Guard from the villages round, though scarce believing that we should venture to attack them.