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After the Storming of the Bastille in 1789 and the Declaration of the First Republic in 1792
the new régime in France was total. The nobility was abolished. Priests who refused to swear allegiance to the Republican government were deported and replaced with "loyal" ones.
New ideas permeated only slowly to the Vendée, more than 200 miles from Paris. In this rural region, then known as Bas-Poitou, social inequality was not as marked as elsewhere. The aristocrats were less rich, their tenant farmers less poor, and the priests more revered.
The Vendean peasants were dismayed to find that the Revolution removed their king (Louis XVI was executed in January 1793), forced on them the unpopular new priests loyal to the changed order, and called for the payment to the Republican government of even higher taxes than had been due under the monarchy. The confiscated goods of the old Church and deported clergy were thought to be lining the pockets of the bourgeoisie who had engineered for themselves top administrative posts. Ignoring the newly sworn-in priests who had been assigned to their churches, the Vendeans continued to worship clandestinely at open-air Masses said by rebellious, pre-Revolutionary clergy.
Vendean farmers, left, took up scythes and billhooks to protect themselves.
The spark that ignited the three years of horrific civil warfare, was the Republican government's decision in February 1793 to raise a 300,000-strong army for the defence of France's borders against threatened invasion by neighbouring countries opposed to the overthrow of the French monarchy. The people of Bas-Poitou and neighbouring départements refused to submit to formal conscription so Republican soldiers were sent in to draw names at random. Riots ensued. In March the inhabitants of Machecoul massacred the Republican troops billeted in the town; other villages followed suit. But generally counted as the start of the wars was the mass refusal of conscription, on 11 March 1793, by the people of St-Florent-le-Vieil, midway between Nantes and Angers, in the département of Maine-et-Loire. Switching their scythe blades from horizontal to vertical, the populace routed the "Bleus" ("Blues", or Republican troops, sometimes referred to as "patriots"), and captured their cannon, then called upon a humble carter, Jacques Cathelineau, to lead them. Cathelineau and, later, Jean-Nicolas Stofflet were working-class generals; for the rest, the Vendean peasants prevailed on trusted members of the local aristocracy to take command - François-Athanase Charette de la Contrie, Henri de Lescure, Henri de la Rochejaquelein, the Duc d'Elbée - whose names have passed into local folklore.
The stone, at Nuaillé - near Cholet - marks the place where Henri de la Rochejaquelein fell.
The initially ill-equipped Republicans were soon reinforced, and the early Vendean victories turned to defeat at Nantes (where Cathelineau was mortally wounded). The Vendeans (also known as "Whites", or "brigands") lost Cholet and then, in search of hoped-for reinforcements from England (whence many of the French nobility had fled), made a seemingly-impossible dash, known as the "Virée de Galerne", north across the river Loire. On 18 October 1793 the Vendeans ferried between 60,000 and 100,000 men, women and children over the wide and treacherous river. After an epic 200km march north in an attempt to capture a suitable Channel port ready to receive the expected English aid, the Vendeans laid siege to the town of Granville in November. Having failed to take the port, they set off back towards the Loire. At Le Mans, 10,000 were cut down at the hands of the heavily-armed Republicans. Tens of thousands more died, either in combat or from sickness or hunger. In December 1793 just a few thousand managed to re-cross the Loire.
Determined that such insurrection should never happen again, the Republicans sent "colonnes infernales" ("fiery columns" of troops) to lay waste every village and kill every remaining person in the département of Bas-Poitou - that would henceforth be renamed "Vendée". From early 1794 these death squads passed from village to village burning, pillaging and massacring. At Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne 563 people - women, children and old men - were shot as they knelt in church.
The few surviving Vendeans returned home to ruined houses, murdered families. Hiding out among the gorse and the forests, they continued to wage a guerrilla warfare for many months. Charette and Stofflet signed peace treaties with the Republicans in 1795, though Charette continued to lead skirmishes and ambushes against the Blues until his capture at La Chabotterie in March 1796, and his subsequent execution.
A stone cross, marks the spot where the Vendean general Charette was captured by Republican soldiers.
Under a treaty drawn up by the Republican General Hoche in 1799, freedom of worship returned to France. Napoleon Bonaparte made supervision of the unruly region less difficult by transferring the capital from Fontenay-le-Comte to La Roche-sur-Yon, then a mere village, in the geographical heart of the Vendée.
Although, with Charette's death, the wars had reached an end, some further attempts were made to rekindle them. In 1815, Louis de La Rochejaquelein (brother of Henri) carried out an unsuccessful invasion near Croix-de-Vie. Seventeen years later the Duchesse de Berry tried to seize the French throne for her son, the Duke of Bordeaux - grandson of Charles X.
PLACES ASSOCIATED WITH THE VENDÉE WARS
Tourist offices stock maps describing Les Routes de la Vendée Militaire.
Among the most interesting museums and other places associated with the Vendée Wars are:
The Logis de la Chabotterie, near St-Sulpice-le-Verdon; an elegant manor house where the Vendean general Charette was captured and interrogated. Now an informative museum and discovery centre, with large park, and a beautifully-tended garden.
Les Lucs website
Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne, scene of a terrible massacre where 563 people were locked in a church, shot and then burnt by Republicans. Memorial chapel of Les Petits-Lucs, built on the site; new, state-of-the-art Chemin de la Mémoire building; stained-glass windows in village church.
The solid grey stone of the Mémorial des Lucs is a focal point for memory..
Noirmoutier Castle, for the bullet-ridden chair where d'Elbée was shot on the square outside, also the painting of this scene, and other souvenirs.
The silhouette of Noirmoutier Castle, is visible from afar. The building houses collections relating to the history of the island.
Le Mont des Alouettes, near Les Herbiers; three remaining windmills of the seven whose sails were used to pass coded messages to the guerrilla warriors indicating the whereabouts of the Republican troops.
One of the remaining windmills, at Le Mont des Alouettes.
Forest of Grasla, north of La Roche-sur-Yon; 2,500 Vendeans hid out here for six months in 1794.
One of the most attractive corners of the Vendée, the Refuge de Grasla, left, is a reconstruction of the woodland shelters constructed by Vendeans trying to hide from the Republican forces.
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, at Cholet; paintings, objects and explanations in an ultra-modern setting.
Cholet's art and history museum, gives an excellent explanation of the Vendée Wars.
Musée des Guerres de Vendée, at Les Sables-d'Olonne, for waxworks and documents. (Currently "closed for refurbishment". 2004)
Le Panthéon de la Vendée, cemetery at La Gaubretière where many combattants are buried.
Copyright Angela Bird. (Angela is author of the guidebook "The Vendée")
Extracted, with permission, from her website www.the-vendee.co.uk "
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