A combination so extensive as this, which comprised the whole of Brittany, and the greater part of La Vendée could not for any length of time remain concealed. Among the conspirators was Latouche-Cheftel, a young Breton physician residing in Paris who oppressed by the secrets confided to him faltered under their weight, and, after hesitating for some time, at length disclosed the whole plan to his friend, Danton, the most audacious of the revolutionists. Emissaries were now sent into Brittany for the purpose of arresting La Rouërie.

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Although compelled to fly from the chateau, he refused to comply with the wishes of his friends who were anxious that for a while at least he should withdraw from the province. Disdaining retreat, he visited all the chiefs of the confederacy at their residences, passing from one to another for the pur-pose of arousing their spirits from despondency, and inspiring them with fresh hopes. In these perilous journeys, armed at all points, he wandered through fields and forests, and uni-formly avoiding the highways and paths used by the peasantry, passed his nights in the most inaccessible places, never repos-ing twice in the same spot, but sleeping sometimes in caverns, sometimes at the foot of an oak and often at the bottom of a ravine. Meanwhile the insurrection had been postponed until the ensuing month of March when the moment for taking up arms was to be indicated by the descent of a party of royal emigrants upon the coast. The revolutionary authorities at Paris acted upon this occasion with their accustomed energy. The Executive Council in concert with the Committee of General Safety dis-patched into Brittany Laligant-Morillon, an agent in whom they reposed the most unbounded confidence, and to whom they gave unlimited powers for the purpose of securing the chiefs of the league and crushing the whole conspiracy.