The French troops could see, on the plantations near the roads, “cultivators with their families who were observing our movements.” Some shot at the soldiers who guarded the flanks of the unit. They fled as soon as detachments of soldiers were sent after them, but when these detachments returned they appeared and started firing again. “It was evident,” wrote Lacroix, “that we no longer inspired any moral terror, which is the worst thing that can happen to an army.” As a later chronicler wrote: “Everywhere the land harbored enemies—in the woods, behind a rock; liberty gave birth to them.”

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 405