This proceeding gave him great popularity, and when set at liberty, he saw at once and with joy all the signs of approaching revolution. He continued to favor most of the momentous changes proposed by the court, until the States General were convoked, when he perceived intuitively that the privileged orders and the king would alike be engulphed in the enormous preten-sions of the popular branch; and it was by his influence that the nobles of Brittany refused to send ay deputies to the general meeting of the states. The sanguinary excesses which soon followed, made it daily more manifest that the case of government and order were alike endangered, and from

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this time, in order to preserve the throne, he stopped short in the career of innovation. From 1790, he became the hope of the malcontents of Brittany who rallied about him for the purpose of forming a royalist association. The leadership of this great party, to which station he was unanimously elected, was exactly suited to his ardent spirit and indefatigable activ-ity, and he forthwith presented himself to the count d'Artois at Coblentz, to whom he submitted the plan of association. It was approved on the 5th of December 1791, and sanctioned by the king's brothers, and La Rouërie as the leading spirit of the confederation was charged with its management, civil and military. Upon his return, he commenced immediately with the execution of his plan. Royal committees were formed in St. Malo, Dol, Rennes, Fougères and all the principal towns. Accurate lists of such as had lost by the new order of things were made, for the purpose of exciting them to join the confederates. Throughout the whole province, emissaries devoted to the monarch found their way into the ports, custom houses, forts and arsenals, in effect, into all the departments and public establishments of the new government.