In the twelve western departments,[2113] at the beginning of the year 1800, the royalists were masters of nearly the whole country and had control of forty thousand armed men in regimental order; undoubtedly these were to be overcome and disarmed, but they were not to be deprived of their opinions, as of their guns .-- In the month of August, 1799,[2114] sixteen thousand insurgents in Haute Garonne and the six neighboring departments, led by Count de Paulo, had unfurled the royal white flag; one of the cantons, Cadours, "had risen almost entirely;" a certain town, Muret, sent all its able-bodied men.

They had penetrated even to the outskirts of Toulouse, and several engagements, including a pitched battle, were necessary to subdue them.

On one occasion, at Montrejean, 2000 were slain or drowned.

The peasants fought with fury, "a fury that bordered on frenzy;" "some were heard to exclaim with their last breath, 'Vive le Roi!' and others were cut to pieces rather than shout, 'Vive la Republique!'"-- From Marseilles to Lyons the revolt lasted five years on both banks of the Rhone, under the form of brigandage; the royalist bands, increased by refractory conscripts and favored by the inhabitants whom they spared, killed or pillaged the agents of the republic and the buyers of national possessions.[2115] There were thus, in more than thirty departments, intermittent and scattered Vendees.

In all the Catholic departments there was a latent Vendee.