Table Of ContentTH E VENDE/ E
__________________________________________________________________
REYNALD SECHER
Translated by George Holoch
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
Notre Dame, Indiana
English Language Edition Copyright ©
2003
by University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
© Reynald Secher, 1986
Translated by George Holoch from Le glnocidefr anco-fran;aise: La Vendte-Vengl,
published by Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1986.
The publisher is grateful to
THE FRENCH MINISTRY OF CULTURE-CENTRE NATIONAL DU LIVRE
for support of the costs of translation
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Secher, Reynald.
[Genocide franco-fran�ais. English]
A French genocide : the Vendee / Reynald Seeber ; translated by George Holoch.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
0-268-02865-6 (cloth: alJc. paper)
ISBN
x.France-History-Wars of the Vendee, 1793-1832-Atrocities.
2.Church and state-France-Vendee-History-18th century.
3. Vendce (France)-History. + France-History-Revolution, 1789-1799-
lnfiuence. 5. Vendce (France)-Church history-18th century. I. Title.
nc2.18.s43313
2003
2003047333
This book iJ printed on add-fret paper.
oo
TO MY GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
Hippolyte and Celine Bizet
TO MY GRANDPARENTS
Rene and Germaine Guillot
TO MY WIFE
Genevieve
TO MY CHILDREN
Estelle
Tristan
Pierre-Marie
&
TO MY BROTHERS SISTERS
M iam and Jean
yr
Jean-Hugues
Jean-Marc
Thierry
Patrick
CONTENTS
List of Tables, Fi res, and Maps
gu 1X
Preface :xm
Introduction I
Part One Before the War
Hope 7
ONE
The First Revolutionary Accomplishments
TWO 23
The End of the Honeymoon
THREE 29
The Mistakes of the Central Government and 34
FOUR
the Excesses of the Administration
The Role of the Refractory Clergy in the Resistance
FIVE 51
Part Two The War
six The March Toward War 65
The War Begins 7
SEVEN 4
EIGHT The Confrontation Between Legitimacy and Legality 98
in the Same Territory
+
. . .
Contents
Vlll
Part Three The Period of lmtahility
Political Incoherence
NINE
The Living Conditions of the Vendeans
TEN
Local Authorities Confront Their Consciences
ELEVEN
The Legitimacy of the Clergy and Its Activity
TWELVE
Part Four Consequences
THIRTEEN The Problem 199
FOURTEEN The Human Aspect 208
Assessment of Property Destruction
FIFTEEN 220
Conclusion: The Vendee-Venge
24
7
Appendix: Assessment of Human and Housing
262
Losses by Canton in the Wars of the Vendee
Notes 275
TABLES,
FIGURES, AND MAPS
n
TABLES
Table 8.1 Ships stationed on the Loire in the year II from Angers to
Paimbreuf
Table Priests who died violent or natural deaths
12.1
Table [C ategories on housing]
13.1
Table Population loss according to size of town (by department)
14.1
Table 14.2 Number of towns according to size and percent
Table 14.3 Table of repression of nine mothers and eight couples killed
in La Remaudiere
Table 14.4 Table of repression according to age and sex of inhabitants
killed in La Remaudiere
Table 14.5 Table of repression in relation to fifty-four families affected in
La Remaud.iere
Table Distribution of percentages of housing destruction according
15.1
to number, percentage, and department
Table Housing destruction by commune and department according
15.2
to concentration
Table 15.3 Distribution of.damage by commune (according to size) and
department
Table 15.4 Situation of the canton of Palluau presented by an official
+ ix
+
x Tables, Figures, andM aps
Table 15.5 Housing not rebuilt by number of communes, department'
Table 15.6 Distribution of doors in houses in La Chapelle-Bassemere
Table 15.7 Distribution of doors and windows in houses in La Chapelle
Bassemere
Table 15.8 Ownership of houses in La Chapelle-Bassemere before the
Revolution according to socio-professional categories
Table 15.9 Value of La Chapelle-Bassemere houses before the Revolu-
tion according to number of units
Table 15.10 Number and value of bourgeois houses and castles in La
Chapelle-Bassemere before the Revolution and relation to
total
Table 15.u Distribution of housing value before the Revolution accord
ing to socio-professional categories
Table 15.12 Geographic distribution of housing before the Revolution
Table 15.13 Distribution of housing destruction according to socio
professional categories
Table 15.14 Principal residences destroyed according to socio-professional
categories
Table 15.15 Value of housing destroyed according to socio-professional
categories
Table 15.16 Value of rebuilt housing according to socio-professional cate
gones
Table 15.17 Rebuilding costs according to socio-professional categories
Appendix Assessment of human and housing losses by canton (1980
canton limits) in the wars of the Vendee
FIGURES
Fi re 15.1 Total reconstructions in three departments (on the basis of
gu
6,942 houses)
Fi re 15.2 Percentage of total reconstructions in three departments (on
gu
the basis of 6,942 houses)
Fi re 15.3 Rate of reconstruction in La Chapelle-Bassemere
gu
+
Tables, Fi res, and Maps
xi
gu
MAPS
Mapr.r Departments of the Military Vendee
Map 8.r Plan of the first "promenade" of the infernal columns (Janu
ary 21-27, 1794)
Map14.1 Loss of population in number
Mapr4.2 Loss of population in percent
l\1ap Number of houses destroyed
15.I
Map 15.2 Percent of existing houses destroyed
Mapr 5.3 Percent of destroyed houses not rebuilt
Map 15.4 Number of houses not rebuilt
Map 15.5 Percent of houses not rebuilt in relation to property before the
Revolution
Map15.6 Value of reconstruction in relation to property before the Revo
lution (percent)
Map 15.7 Loss of value of rebuilt housing in relation to value before the
Revolution (percent)
PREFACE
THE HISTORY OF THE WARS OF THE VENDEE HAS ATTRACTED MANY
writers, and the subject might seem to be exhausted. However, they have
not revealed the reasons for the movement nor its short- and medium-term
consequences.
Undertaking a new investigation including all the events and all the
insurgent territories would merely have produce4 yet another compilation.
This is why, for a thesis for the troisieme cycle, I chose a community in the
north of the military Vendee, La Chapelle-Bassemere, at the junction of
Anjou, the Vendee, and Brittany, and on the banks of the Loire.1 This area
provides an excellent vantage point, a place where ideas, ideologies, and
ways of life came into direct and vigorous conflict. Reactions were of vary
ing degrees of violence, and they deeply affected the local population.
However, I could not restrict myself to this· narrow canvas and necessarily
had to consider the Vendee as a whole.
Historians have generally tended to study the movement from the
Revolutionary and Jacobin point of view. As for historiography on the
Vendean side, it is not very convincing, made up as it is essentially of per
sonal, partial, and impassioned testimony.
It is commonly thought that most documents related to the military
Vendee have disappeared, but the reality is entirely different. A substantial
quantity of data was deliberately preserved by one or the other of the bel
ligerents. For example, the mayor of Challans, in fiight, had his archives
transported in a wheelbarrow. Some were stored in official or private struc
2
tures; ignored or geographically inaccessible, they were therefore preserved.
Others were collected and lovingly preserved by individuals, such as the
+
xiii
.J
xiv Preface
abbe Pierre-Marie Robin (1748-1805), the refractory cure of La Chapelle
Bassemere who saved a portion of his parish registers.
3
But a distinction must be made between official and private documen
tation. The former, unevenly catalogued, is scattered in public collections
the fort of Vincennes, national, departmental, and communal archives-and
it contains unsuspected riches. As for the latter, deposited in bishops' palaces,
local churches, headquarters of religious orders, and in some private houses,
it is little known and therefore little used, but it sometimes provides great
surpnses.
Oral tradition survives but is of varying interest depending on times,
informants, and places; it remained relatively vivid until the 1960s, as in all
of provincial France. Now it has almost disappeared; only the elderly still
have some original portions of it, and it is therefore urgent to take advan
tage of them. 4
The two world wars obviously transformed the traditional Vendee. In
the first, the men mobilized went through the actual experience of war, and
in the second, captivity affected thousands of young men for a number of
years. These prisoners acquired experience on model farms in Czecho
slovakia, Germany, and Austria that gave them an image of a different rural
life, which they experienced as more evolved, more modern. During this
time, the women, left to work on the land, challenged even further the tradi
tional division of labor. After 1945 communities that had become self-critical,
dissolved into generalized doubt. The proliferation of means of transport
and the spread of consumer society provided their death blow.
This sketchy description partially explains the difficulties encountered
by researchers in reconstituting the life of the military Vendee through its
habits and conflicts �s well as through local political events and economic
vicissitudes. Although it is obvious that I encountered the same obstacles, I
must recognize that I benefited from certain advantages, of three kinds. The
first was access to a significant stock of family docwnents and to a relatively
intact old oral source. The second was my knowled of the Vendee, my
ge
birthplace, in which my family has deep roots. Finally, many people pro
vided close cooperation.
I thank the professors on my jury, Jean-Pierre Bardet, Louis Mer, Jean
Tulard, Yves Durand; Andre Corvisier for his advice; Pierre Chaunu for
his writings and his encoura ment; and I express particular gratitude to
ge
Professor Jean M er, who supervised my work in a friendl attentive, and
ey y,
active way, and to his wife, for her gracious hospitality.
