Maronite Monks of Adoration
September 2010
FOR GOD AND KING
THE CATHOLIC RING OF THE VENDEE
“We have only one honor in the world,
It is the honor of Our Lord.
We have only one glory in the world,
It is the glory of Our Lord.”
(A Vendean hymn)
O
n May 2 1791 in the tiny French hamlet of St. Christophe de Lignerons, a column of soldiers from the
Revolutionary French government entered escorting a
priest who, in disobedience to Pope Pius VI, had taken an
oath of loyalty to the Revolutionary State. Intending to
“install” this priest as their pastor they encountered a hostile flock. No priest disobedient to the Pope and supporting that godless revolution would be their pastor. There
was a fight. A young peasant named Barillon was badly
wounded. “Give yourself up,” a soldier commanded. Barillon replied: “Give me my God,” and then he died, bayoneted by the revolutionary soldiers.
This event heralded the beginning of truly one of the
greatest yet least known episodes of Catholic history: the
uprising of the Catholic people of the Vendee of France
against a revolution, supposedly made in their name, that
was determined to wipe out Christianity from the face of
the earth. In a two part article we will first look at the actual
event itself and secondly, given the growth of militant
anti-Catholicism in the West, how this story shows what’s
in store for us if this juggernaut is not checked.
The Vendee lies in the northwest corner of France and
includes parts of Anjou, Brittany, and Poitou. While extremely poor economically, they were very rich spiritually in their Catholic faith due to the evangelization of
St. Louis de Montfort and his congregation. For these
people, their faith was no mere cultural addition to be jettisoned at the first inconvenience. These people would die
for their faith and many would.
Historical accounts of the French Revolution tend to
either minimize or to ignore the Vendean uprising. Why?
Because it doesn’t fit into the atheistic myth that Catholics
are the persecutors while atheists are liberal and tolerant.
So we start with a little background on this revolution.
Beginning on July 14, 1789, it soon became apparent
that the Revolution’s leaders, mostly lawyers from the
Masonic Lodge (there were over 900 lodges in France at convent. Most of the peasants died for this chivalrous
the time), were possessed of a visceral anti-Catholicism. deed. When the National Assembly replaced those heroic
The Revolution’s spiritual father, Voltaire, exclaimed: priests who had refused the oath with “constitutional
“Ecrasez l’fame!” (Crush the infamy – the “infamy” being priests” (priests who had taken the revolutionary oath),
the Catholic Church). The effect of these lodges should the Vendean peasants flatly refused to go to church.
not be minimized. They poisoned the culture with their Parents of newborn babies had to be marched at gunpoint
invectives against the Church in much the same way that to the baptismal fonts. The following gives you an example
the mainstream media and entertainment industry does of the faith of these simple people. At Saint-Hilaire-detoday with the result that many people were lukewarm in Mortagne one Sunday, a sergeant found the parishioners
their faith and made no protest when the revolutionaries kneeling in silence in the cemetery, their church having
sought not only to destroy the Catholic Church in France, been closed. The sergeant asked an old peasant what they
but also to eradicate Christianity from the whole world.
were doing there, and the peasant explained, “When our
On October 29, 1789, three months after the fall of curé left, he promised us that every Sunday at this very
the Bastille, the taking of religious vows was forbidden hour he would say Mass for us wherever he might be.” The
in France. On November 2, 1789, the totality of Church sergeant reacted with scorn: “Superstitious imbeciles! They
property throughout all of France was confiscated and de- believe they hear Mass from the place where it is said.” The
clared property of the state, completely striping religious old man answered meekly: “Prayer travels more than a
communities of their means of income. On February 13, hundred leagues, since it ascends from earth to Heaven.”
1790, monastic vows were abolished
Many of the Vendean priests who
in the name of religious freedom, and
had refused the oath returned to
the religious orders suppressed. On
their native towns and lived in hiding
July 12, 1790 the National Assembly
among their relatives and friends. They
passed the “Civil Constitution of the
would say Mass in barns, attics, or celClergy.” This law required all bishops,
lars. They had a price on their heads,
priests and religious to swear an oath
but they trusted in the protection of
of loyalty to the revolutionary regime
the peasants. Under a law passed in
or face deportation from the country.
August 1792, 50 livres was offered as a
It made all clergy employees of the
reward for the capture of an outlawed
Sacred Heart Badge
state, paid their salaries and estabpriest. Local councils could increase
worn
by
the
Vendeans
lished complete state control of the
the reward to 100 livres. Among the
Catholic Church in effect making it
families hiding priests was the Viana branch of the state. Obviously, as state employees, they ney family. Young Jean-Marie Vianney vividly rememwould be expected not to disagree with the revolution.
bered his family hiding these priests and attending Mass
134 French bishops condemned it, and Pope Pius VI in secret with other villagers. Those experiences served as
declared it heretical. Only 4 bishops, including Bishop a major foundation for his future vocation to the priestTalleyrand (“the most excommunicated man in the hood.
Catholic Church” according to Fr. Benedict Groeschel
What finally triggered a widespread resistance among
CFR), supported it. Likewise, the vast majority of priests the Catholic peasants in Vendée was the National Assemand religious rejected it. In August 1792 a new law made bly’s order early in 1793 for some 300,000 men to be conthose priests who still refused the oath liable to deportation, scripted into the national army. This was the last straw —
and in May 1793 another law condemned to death those to be obliged to join the troops that were hunting down
priests liable to deportation who were still in France. Thus their priests. The Vendean army was called at times “The
the law was turned into a weapon to destroy the holy order Army of the Sacred Heart.” The nobility of Vendée had
of priesthood and the Catholic Church. Remember the virtually disappeared by 1793, so the peasants summoned
“Declaration on the Rights of Man” (another product of mostly former officers and career soldiers to lead them
the Masonic Lodge) guaranteeing freedom of religion was into battle. These colorful characters include Charette, a
supposedly in effect.
veteran officer of the American Revolution, and the MarResistance to this persecution erupted in August 1792 quis de Bonchamps, a former officer in India. Such experiwhen 600 Vendean peasants brandishing farm tools tried enced soldiers knew they faced impossible odds, yet they
to stop the National Guard from evicting nuns from a gallantly answered the peasants’ summons. At one point,
they led some 35,000 Catholic peasants into battle, many
of them poorly equipped. At its peak in 1793, the Catholic army defeated the Mayençais, a force of 20,000 veterans that had never retreated before an army in Europe.
The “Committee of National Salvation” (“Public
Safety” is a deliberate mistranslation), the driving force
of the revolution, responded with savagery. Among the
many atrocities carried out against the Vendean Catholics
was the massacre at a hospital near Yzernay, where 2,000
wounded soldiers, old men, women, and children were
slaughtered. A Chapel of the Martyrs now stands at
the spot. There was also the massacre of 6,000 Catholic
prisoners, many of them women, after the battle of
Savenay. In addition, there were the Martyrs of Avrillé, half
of them women — recently beatified by Pope John Paul II
— who were marched out of town in batches of some 400,
lined up 50 at a time against a ditch, and shot by fusillade.
Then there was the drowning of 5,000 in the Loire River
at Nantes — priests, old men, women, and children. And
3,000 Catholic women killed by drowning at Pont-auBaux. Drownings became a form of entertainment for the
soldiers. Comic names were given to the drownings: They
were called “republican marriages” when young Catholic
men and women were tied naked in pairs and cast into the
water. They were also called “vertical deportation in the
national bathtub” and “patriotic baptism.”
In Part II we will see the conclusion of this event and offer some reflections on how the faith of these simple peasants can inspire us as the very forces which raged against
them now array themselves against the Church today. 