After the capable battalion leader demonstrated his total unfitness for the post of army commander, he was just as quickly arrested and thrown into prison where he died, a probable suicide.

[4] On 6 November that year the 1st Charente was at the Battle of Jemappes where it was included in François Richer Drouet's 1st Brigade of the First Line of the Left Wing under Jean Henri Becays Ferrand.

The French defenders led by Jean Ferrand surrendered to the Coalition army under Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany after 1,000 soldiers were killed or died of sickness out of 9,800 troops.

Army of the Rhine commander Alexandre de Beauharnais suggested that using the garrison to fight in the Vendée would not be a violation of their parole.

By 25 August the so-called Army of Mayence (the French name for Mainz) under Jean-Baptiste Annibal Aubert du Bayet assembled at Tours.

[12] In early October 1793, as the French were about to launch a new offensive, Canclaux was suspended from command of the Army of the Coasts of Brest and du Bayet was also removed from his post.

The dismissals were brought about by the scheming of Charles-Philippe Ronsin who convinced the minister of war Jean Baptiste Noël Bouchotte that Canclaux and du Bayet were responsible for the lack of success.

As Kléber quietly put away the map, the representative Antoine Merlin de Thionville declared that the government was appointing the most ignorant generals possible.

[2] After discussion, it was agreed that the Nantes and Mayence divisions would continue to march from the west toward Cholet where it would meet converging columns from Luçon and Les Sables d'Olonne in the south and from Bressuire in the east.

After starting at La Châtaigneraie, Chalbos and François Joseph Westermann devastated the countryside[18] as far as Bressuire where they were joined by columns from Saumur and Thouars, making a body of 20,000 soldiers.

[18] On 14 October 1793, Léchelle ordered the Luçon column to march through Mortagne-sur-Sèvre to make contact with the advance guard of the Mayence division under Michel de Beaupuy.

A blundering staff officer failed to notify Beaupuy of the intended junction and the Luçon division marched into a Vendean ambush.

After its commander was hit, François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers took charge of the column and fought off the Vendeans in the Battle of La Tremblaye on 15 October.

Beaupuy marched to the guns and helped repulse the rebels whose leader Louis Marie de Lescure was badly wounded.

Kléber deployed the troops of Beaupuy and Nicolas Haxo on the left, the Luçon division in the center under Marceau and Louis Antoine Vimieux's men on the right.

The next day the Vendean army crossed to the north side of the river, avoiding Westermann who arrived too late and expended his fury by devastating the area.

[22] The responsibility for escape of the rebel army was due to Léchelle's failure to push the pursuit but also to 10,000 Republican troops north of the Loire that failed to block the crossing.

On the evening of 25 October the reckless Westermann blundered into an ambush at Croix-de-Bataille south of Laval and fell back to a fine defensive position at Entrammes.

Kléber and Marceau recommended that the army halt at Château-Gontier while they devised a two-pronged attack along both banks of the Mayenne River.

Though they were facing the army's best troops, the Vendeans mounted an extremely effective attack which steadily drove back the Republicans.

He did not understand maps, hardly knew how to sign his name, and did not once approach within cannon shot of the rebels; in a word, there was nothing comparable to his poltroonery and his inefficiency, except his arrogance, his brutality, and his obstinacy".