A body of eighteen men was chosen, to administer affairs under the title of the Superior Council; and a priest who had joined them at Thouars, and who called himself, though without a shadow of right, the Bishop of Agra, was appointed president.

He was an eloquent man, of commanding presence, and the leaders had not thought it worth while to inquire too minutely into his claim to the title of bishop; for the peasants had been full of enthusiasm at having a prelate among them, and his influence and exhortations had been largely instrumental in gathering the army which had won the battle of Fontenay.
But although he was appointed president, the leading spirit of the council was the Abbe Bernier, a man of great energy and intellect, with a commanding person, ready pen, and a splendid voice; but who was altogether without principle, and threw himself into the cause for purely selfish and ambitious motives.
It was on the sixteenth of May that Fontenay was won, and on the third of June the church bells again called the peasantry to arms.
The disaster at Fontenay had done more than all the representations of their generals to rouse the Convention.

Seven battalions of regular troops arrived, and Biron, who had been appointed commander-in-chief, reached Niort and assumed the command.
He wrote at once, to the minister of war, to say that he found the confusion impossible to describe.

There was an absence of any organization, whatever.

The town was crowded with fugitives who, having distinguished themselves by the violence of their opinions and the severity of their measures, before the insurrection broke out, were forced to take refuge in the cities.