Many people will have heard of the French Resistance, the name given to the various underground organizations that fought against the Nazis during the German occupation of France in World War II. Few, however, will be aware of another “French Resistance,” a century and a half earlier, in which around 170,000 people died. This was the Vendée Uprising of 1793.
The rising of the peasants and people of the Vendée region in the west of France came amid the Reign of Terror which followed the proto-communist and anti-Christian French Revolution of 1789. The tyranny instituted by the revolutionaries had intensified with the September Massacres in 1792, a slaughter of the innocents instigated by Georges Danton, the Revolution’s Minister of Justice. In a speech, Danton sentenced all enemies of the Revolution to death: “We ask that anyone refusing to give personal service [to the Revolution] or to furnish arms shall be punished with death.”
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Within a couple of hours of Danton’s speech, the massacres began. Within two days, more than a thousand people were killed. Several hundred more would die in the following two days. The victims included women and children and around 250 priests. Such was the “justice” ministered by the Revolution’s Minister of Justice. Such was the madness of Paris. Three hundred miles to the west, the Catholic people of the Vendée, aware of the horrors being unleashed by the stormtroopers of the Revolution, prepared to respond courageously to the threat to their Faith and their way of life.
One example of the fidelity of these country folk was given in The Guillotine and the Cross, a history of the French Revolution and its aftermath by Warren H. Carroll, who is himself an unsung hero of Christendom not merely for his important work as a historian but as the founder and first president of Christendom College, one of the first of the new wave of faithful colleges established in the 1970s to resist the rising tide of modernism in Catholic education. Dr. Carroll recounts the inspiring story of the people of the village of Saint-Hilaire-de-Mortagne and their peaceful but resilient resistance to the decrees of the Revolution.
Before their priest was exiled for refusing to take the required oath of fidelity to the Revolution, he had told them that he would continue to offer Mass at the same scheduled time every Sunday for his flock, even though he could not be with them in person. At the last Mass he would be permitted to celebrate in the village, he told them:
My brothers, I am going to leave you; but, wherever I go, my heart will be with you and I will pray for you. Each Sunday, so long as I am able, I will say Mass, at this same hour, for you. Join with it in your intentions and your prayer.
Dr. Carroll takes up the story:
Thenceforth, every Sunday, the faithful of Saint-Hilaire-de-Mortagne parish would meet at ten o’clock for the “invisible Mass.” When the parish church was closed and locked against them, they went instead to the cemetery at this same hour. Asked by government men what they were doing, the peasant Lumineau answered for them: “We are at Mass. Our priest promised us when he left that he would say Mass for us, each Sunday, wherever he was.” “Imbeciles!” they were mocked. “Your priest is a hundred leagues from here, and you think you are assisting at Mass?” “Prayer,” Lumineau responded gently, “goes more than a hundred leagues; it ascends from earth to Heaven!”
Such peaceful protest and such a gentle response would be no longer possible once the secularist regime tried to enforce compulsory conscription into the revolutionary army. Not only were Catholics being killed by the Revolution, they were now being forced to kill for it.
On March 12, 1793, a delegation of government officials arrived in the small town of Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, on the banks of the River Loire, protected by National Guardsman, to forcibly enlist the townsman into the army. The selection of conscripts would be made by the drawing of lots. This was the final straw for the enraged people of the Vendée. Two thousand peasants gathered in the town square, armed with shotguns, clubs, pitchforks, and swords made from scythe blades.
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According to Dr. Carroll, “they were led by a carpenter, a carter, a tailor, and a barrel-maker, and their sons.” As the first lot was drawn, a shot was fired from the crowd, killing one of the government officials. The National Guardsmen responded by firing indiscriminately at the people, killing four and wounding forty. Far from scattering in panic, the enraged peasants attacked the Revolutionary Guards. “Vive le roi!” and “Vive les bons prêtres!” were the battle cries. “Long live the king!” and “Long live the good priests!” The great Vendée uprising had begun.
Within days, the people of the Vendée had united against the common foe. The local Catholic nobility joined the fray, fighting alongside the peasants and townsfolk. Forming what became known as the Catholic and Royal Army, the insurgents won a string of victories in the spring and summer of 1793, wresting control of the region from the repressive revolutionaries.
Inevitably, however, the hydra-headed hegemon in Paris responded with overwhelming force. A revolutionary army of almost 150,000 well-armed troops was sent against the 80,000 poorly armed Vendeans. Outnumbered and outgunned, the heroic peasantry and people of the Vendée finally succumbed in battle. Around 30,000 revolutionary troops were killed in the uprising and at least as many members of the Catholic and Royal Army.
