The Example of the Angers Martyrs

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The Example of the Angers Martyrs - On the Anniversary of Their Martyrdom
by Etienne Muret

Dominicans of Avrillé from Le Sel de la terre 127, Winter 2023-2024 [adapted]

THE YEAR 2024 is the 230th anniversary of the Champ-des-martyrs shootings in Avrillé. Around two thousand people were shot in this enclosure[1], both men and women. Even if, in many cases, history has only preserved the names of these victims of the Terror[2], we can affirm without fear of error that it was in hatred of the Catholic faith that all these people were massacred. For whenever the revolutionary clerk noted the reasons for condemnation – or the sham that took the place of it – behind the qualifiers of “fanaticism” or “complicity with brigands”, what was always targeted was attachment and fidelity to traditional religion. The monsters who judged these unfortunate people sometimes tried to hide their hatred of true religion under political motives, but there’s no mistaking it. The arsenal of defamatory invectives and the outrageousness of the words used failed to disguise the real motive behind the condemnations.

This anniversary is therefore an opportunity to recall these glorious events, and to draw from them lessons of faith, strength and fidelity for our struggles today. For the story of the martyrs of Angers and Avrillé offers many analogies with the present situation, and is in some ways a model for the battles we must wage today to preserve the Christian faith and spirit in the midst of general apostasy.

What’s more, this story took place just a stone’s throw from the Haye-aux-Bonshommes site: the ground we walk on was sprinkled with the blood of these martyrs.

It’s part of our heritage. We don’t have the right to ignore it or let it be forgotten.

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On nine occasions[3] from January 12 to April 16, 1794, columns of victims took to the road leading to the Champ-des-martyrs, a field that was then part of the Cloux farm estate, one of the farms that depended, until the Revolution, on the Grandmontain priory of La Haye-aux-Bonshommes[4]. At the time of the sale of national property, this estate was bought by one of Angers’ revolutionaries, Sieur Desvallois, who himself offered his field for shooting: “It will make manure!” he cynically declared.

Among these victims, the Church retained eighty-four, those for whom there was enough information to be able to affirm the religious character of their condemnation and initiate a beatification process. The vast majority were common women – wives, mothers and daughters of peasants, craftsmen, workers and merchants – with a few squires and two nuns. Only four men appear in this list, although a large number of others fell under the bullets at the Champ-des-martyrs. But these men had almost all served in the Catholic army and, as former Vendée soldiers, their condemnation could appear to have been inspired by political rather than religious motives. This is why the prudent diocesan tribunal in charge of the ordinary trial (in 1905-1919) thought it was right not to consider them as genuine martyrs, even if, in this context of religious persecution, the accusation of sympathy for the “brigands” – who were fighting for God and the King – could be qualified as a religious motive. This was also the case in the trials of the Laval and Noël Pinot martyrs.

To these eighty-four martyrs by shooting, we must add fifteen or sixteen who were guillotined in Angers, Place du Ralliement, including thirteen priests (counting Blessed Noël Pinot who was beatified before the others, under Pius XI), one nun and two women.[5]

The deeds of these one hundred martyrs constitute one of the most beautiful pages in the religious history of Anjou, a page worthy of the martyrdom accounts of the Christians of the early Church.

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As everyone knows, the Revolutionary Terror used the most atrocious means in its war against the Catholic populations of the West. 1794 was the year of the infernal columns and the great massacres of the Vendéens. Arrests multiplied, and prisons overflowed with inmates. And yet, these prisons were very numerous. In Angers, prisoners were incarcerated not only in the National Prison (Place des Halles, now Place Louis-Imbach) and the Château, but also in convents and churches that had been converted into prisons: Le Calvaire, Le Bon-Pasteur, Les Pénitentes, Le Carmel, Saint-Aubin, Les Petits-Pères (Lazaristes) in the Cathedral, Saint-Aubin, the two seminaries, La Rossignolerie (school of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine) and many other places.

But what can be done? There are too many prisoners, and the guillotine is no longer enough[6]. The guillotine is a spectacular punishment, particularly appreciated by revolutionaries, with its theatrical staging to impress the spirits, but it’s too slow and too expensive. Each execution cost the nation fifty-nine pounds.

The lack of hygiene and food, coupled with the cold – the thermometer fell to 17° below zero that winter – did cause deadly epidemics, and in less than a year, a good thousand prisoners died on their rotting straw beds[7]. But even that couldn’t empty the prisons.

In Nantes, prisoners were drowned in the Loire; in Angers, they were shot en masse. The shootings began in December 1793, on the banks of the Maine, at Port-de-1’Ancre, then at Sainte-Gemmes and Les Ponts-de-Cé. The bodies were thrown into the river Maine, but this soon gave rise to hygiene problems. Another location had to be found.

This is why the most massive shootings finally took place at the Champ-des-martyrs, in Avrillé. To speed things up, the judges from the military commission visited the prisons. Put in the presence of the suspects, they proceeded to a semblance of interrogation, which the clerk noted down in a few words: “… Did you go to the masses of the refractory priests? – Why didn’t you go to the masses of the sworn priests? …”. The minutes take up one or two lines, almost always punctuated by the word “fanatic”, “pronounced fanatic”, “superlative fanatic”, “invincible fanatic” or “fieffé aristocrate”, which, in revolutionary parlance, means: faithful Catholic, irredeemable, attached to traditional religion and the old order. In the margin, the clerk added “F”: to be shot, or, more rarely, “G”: to be guillotined.

Terrorists surrounded executions with sinister ceremony. The military commission – the most ferocious of the two revolutionary tribunals, and a major purveyor of guillotines and shootings – was based in the former Dominican convent, next to the cathedral, while the revolutionary committee was housed in the bishop’s palace. This is where the chain of victims was formed, tied up two by two. Those unable to walk were thrown into a cart, and the column moved off, flanked by a double row of gendarmes. Crossing the main branch of the Maine at what is now the Pont de Verdun, they crossed the Doutre district, and the chain lengthened as they stoped in front of each “prison”. Then they took the path that climbs towards Avrillé, “the path of silence”, as it was known in those days. The contrast between the prisoners – mostly common men and women, with a few nobles and bourgeois, admirable Christians calmly walking to their deaths, murmuring the rosary or singing hymns to the Virgin – and the vociferous troupe of “sans-culottes”, flanked by shrews reeking of alcohol and vice, hurled insults at the condemned. The judges, girded in their tricolor scarves and swaddling in their robes, followed the procession, with the military band alternating between the revolutionary songs “Ça ira” and the “Marseillaise” (now national anthem of France!)

Arriving at the Champ-des-martyrs, the chain was undone and the condemned lined up in front of the prepared pits. The gendarmes fired a salvo, the bodies fell. The wounded and dying were “finished” off with sabers and bayonets. A little earth was thrown in, and the pit was ready for the next batch.


Love of Truth and Hatred of Lies

It would take hours to recount in detail the marvels contained in the deeds of all these martyrs. Let’s just pick a few pearls from this treasure trove and try to apply their lessons.

One of the first testimonies these martyrs give us is their refusal to lie or make shameful compromises. Even to save their own lives, our martyrs refused to compromise. Preserved accounts provide us with several examples. Here are three of them.

The first is that of Perrine-Renée Potier, wife Turpault, mother of five children. Arrested in Les Aubiers, she was taken to Cholet “kicked and sabered”, and three days later gave birth to a son who died immediately after his baptism. Taken to Angers on January 16, 1794, she appeared before the military commission on the 24th, and let it be known that she was still pregnant. Thanks to this, she avoided being shot. Full of remorse for what she called her “fault”, she was interrogated again on February 9 and April 2 in the Calvaire prison.

“But you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” One of the judges asked.
“No, I’m not, and you can judge me”, she replied.
Back in her cell, her companions asked her:

“But why didn’t you say yes? You were saved!”
“I know that”, she replied, “but I’d rather die than tell a lie.”
And she prepared herself for death with constant prayer. She was shot on Holy Wednesday, April 16, 1794.[8]

The other example is that of Sister Marie-Anne, one of the two Daughters of Charity (Congregation founded by saint Vincent-de-Paul) who were shot on February 1st, 1794 along with four hundred other victims, because they had refused the oath of “Liberté, Égalité” (Freedom and Equality). Entering the Champ-des-martyrs enclosure, Sister Marie-Anne intones the litanies of the Blessed Virgin; all the condemned women respond: “Ora pro nobis”. The chain was transformed into a Marian procession. One of the soldiers was distraught at the sight: “It hurts to see such women die!” The commander was also moved and wanted to save the two nuns:

Citizens, there is still time to escape the death that threatens you. You have rendered services to humanity. Why, for the sake of an oath asked of you, would you give up your life and discontinue the good works you have always done? Let it not be so, return to your home, continue to render the services you have always rendered. Do not take the oath, for it is repugnant and upsetting to you. I take it upon myself to say that you have taken it, and I give you my word that nothing will be done to you or your companions.

Sister Marie-Anne’s response is admirable:

Citizen, not only do we not want to take the oath you’re talking about, we don’t even want to be seen to have taken it. Do not believe us cowardly enough and attached enough to a miserable life to believe us capable of soiling our soul and sacrificing it for an oath we have always hated and still hate. God will not ask us to account for the services we could render to our fellow human beings only by taking an oath that He hates and condemns, and if we can only preserve our lives on this condition, we declare to you that we would rather die than do anything contrary to the love we have sworn to our God.[9]

In the same vein, we should mention the heroic attitude of Abbé Laigneau de Langellerie. He was chaplain to the Angers Carmelite convent. Interned at the major seminary in 1792, condemned to deportation, but detained in Nantes due to his state of health, he escaped from prison, disguised as a peasant, on July 27, 1793, and returned clandestinely to Angers. Arrested on October 11, 1794 as he was about to perform extreme unction on a sick woman, he was taken amidst boos to the bishop’s palace, where the revolutionary committee was sitting. During his interrogation, the judge told him that if he stopped opposing the oath and rallied to the Republic, he would be in a better position:

You know that there are many priests who are now in society and who live there peacefully, that the Republic gives them protection. Because they are subject to the law, they have taken the required oath. They are not hiding. So you must have conspired against the Republic?

But in the face of this tempting offer, Abbé de Langellerie remained imperturbable and faithful to his duty.

My conscience and my science have never allowed me to take the required oath.

What did you find in the oath that could hurt your conscience?

It was to approve by an oath your French Republic, which has destroyed the religion of Jesus Christ who is the God of my heart, Deus cordis mei. […]

So you’re convinced that the Republic can’t survive and that the Catholic religion must be re-established?

With regard to the French Republic, I think that it is an enemy of the religion of Jesus Christ, but that a republican government must protect the Christian religion. […] I stand by my answers, which contain the truth, but I do not wish to sign, […as] I generally refuse my signature in matters of the Republic.[10]

Transferred to the Angers criminal court[11] (by this date, the military commission no longer existed), Abbé de Langellerie was condemned as a refractory priest and enemy of the Republic. He was guillotined on October 14, 1794, during the first vespers of Saint Teresa of Avila, founder of the Carmelite nuns of which he was chaplain. He was the last victim of the guillotine in Anjou.


Defending Faith and True Religion

Another witness given by these exemplary Christians is their faith and their spirit of faith.

This is particularly true of priests.

Abbé Ledoyen, vicar of Contigné, remained in his parish to exercise his ministry. Taking refuge with Mme Déan de Luigné, who was hiding refractory priests in her château de la Bossivière, he was discovered and arrested with his benefactress and her three daughters[12] on December 17, 1793. Taken to Chateauneuf-sur-Sarthe, he was interrogated at length on December 23. The last words of his interrogation were a resounding profession of faith. To his judges, who accused him of having “abused the weakness and simplicity of country folk to lead them into the cruellest errors”, he replied:

That he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, that he tried to prevent them from falling into the errors of the innovators

That he sincerely professed such maxims.

That he had always urged them to follow the apostolic and Roman Catholic religion, outside of which there is no salvation, and that they should always be firm and faithful to it.

Similarly, Guillaume Repin, parish priest of Martigné-Briand – then a venerable old man of eighty-four – was accused by the municipal officers of Martigné of having “gangrened his parish”. Arrested and imprisoned on December 24, 1793, he told the judges who questioned him on Christmas Day that he had not taken the oath because “he had his faith and religion to preserve“. Sentenced to death, he was guillotined on January 2, 1794.[13]

But faithfulness to the faith of their baptism is also a matter for the laity.

Charlotte Lucas, a schoolteacher and, as such, subject to the oath of “Liberté, Égalité”, did not want to take it. She “believes that something has changed in religion, which prevented her from doing so”, she explained to the Chalonnes Justice of the Peace on January 4, 1794. Taken to Angers and detained at Le Calvaire, she first appeared before the Revolutionary Committee. Then, on January 18, the military commission sent her to her death, without even questioning her, because she looked like a “God-eater”.[14]

Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont, was a good Catholic woman who defended her faith valiantly. Her convictions, which she made no secret of, attracted the attention of patriots. To those who urged her to be more cautious, she replied: “Why shouldn’t there be martyrs today as there were in the past?”

Arrested in Angers, she was interned at the château. When she appeared in court on March 18, 1794, the judges of the Revolutionary Committee accused her of having shouted “Long live religion and long live the King” when the Vendéens had occupied Angers the previous June. In her defense, she simply proclaimed that she “would rather die than renounce her religion“. She admitted to having met refractory priests, attended their Mass and spoken with them, “particularly about religion“. In the sentence drawn up by the military commission, she was accused of having “encouraged the fanaticism of the rebellious priests […] and taken sacred vases and ornaments from the Republic, which she had taken to hidden places where these scoundrels of priests celebrated their bloodthirsty and murderous cult”. She was guillotined on March 28, in Place du Ralliement.[15]

Antoine Fournier, father of a refractory priest and former soldier in the Vendée army, was one of the one hundred and five victims of the first shoot-out on January 12, 1794. He defended the clandestine priests and declared that he blamed the conduct of those who attacked the Catholic religion.

“Do you disapprove of the monstrous priests who slit our brothers’ throats?” The judge asked.

“I don’t think priests were capable of giving bad advice.”

“You are accused of having criticized the conduct of the Republicans, saying that they were profaning holy sacred vessels, destroying mission crosses,” etc., etc., etc.

“Yes, I have blamed and continue to blame the conduct of those who throw away mission crosses and desecrate sacred vessels.”

“So you would suffer death to defend your religion?”

“Yes.”[16]

He was condemned as “father of a refractory priest and worthy of being one, an outraged fanatic.”


To be continued.


1. The exact number of victims is difficult to establish. Abbé Houdebine estimates the total number of victims of the Terror in Angers at around 3,000, and the number shot at the Champ-des-martyrs at around 2,000 (Dictionnaire de Maine-et-Loire [Célestin PORT], 1.1, new ed. 1965, p. 39a). See also N. DELAHAYE and P.-M. GABORIT, Les Douze colonnes infernales de Turreau, and J.-F. COUET, Dans les prisons d’Angers sous la Terreur, 1793-1794. For full bibliographical references, see the bibliography at the end of this article. ↑
2. Sometimes names are even missing, as revolutionaries didn’t always take the trouble to note the names of victims and keep up-to-date registers. ↑
3. Here are the dates of the nine shootings at the Champ-des-Martyrs: January 12, 1794 (105 men shot); January 15 (300 victims); January 18 (250 people); January 20 (408 victims – this was when Turreau’s infernal columns began to operate); January 21 (70 men and 80 women); January 22 (80 women); February 1 (400 people); February 10 (200 people); April 16 (99 people). The eighty-four “martyrs of Angers” shot belonged to the five shootings of January 12 and 18, February 1 and 10 and April 16. ↑
4. “It was a deserted field, located in the enclosure of the former Haye-aux-Bonshommes.Bonshommes, west of Angers, two kilometers from the city walls.” (Positio, p. 164.) ↑
5. They are Sister Rosalie de la Sorinière (a Calvary nun), Marie de la Dive, wife of Henri de la Sorinière and sister-in-law of the former, and Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont. ↑
6. In Angers, the guillotine was erected from late October 1793 to mid-October 1794 on Place du Ralliement (then known as Place de la Guillotine), a square created in 1791 after the demolition of three churches. The death machine had been erected on the site of the high altar of the former Saint-Pierre church. The guillotine claimed 285 victims, including 31 clergymen. ↑
7. On February 18, 1794, the doctors on duty at the Calvaire prison wrote to the Revolutionary Committee: “Pregnant women and nursing mothers are exposed to terrible misery, their children dying at birth or languishing perched between the emaciated arms of those who gave birth to them. Some mothers have seen five or six of their children perish in their arms, without being able to provide the slightest relief. There’s not a day goes by when six or eight unfortunates die on Calvary alone. If we don’t remedy the abuses a little, we’ll see diseases spread from one to the next, and into the very heart of the city.” ↑
8. See Positio, pp. 364-371 and Yves DAOUD AL, Guillaume Repin…, p. 103-104. The eldest son of Perrine Turpault, François-Joseph-Paul, later wrote to the mayor of Cholet: “As the son of a mother who bore the greatest testimony to the truth, since she preferred death to the most innocent lie under the reign of terror, this lesson has always been engraved in my memory.” (Positio, p. 587). ↑
9. Abbé GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, p. 31-32. Quoted in the Positio, p. 402-403. Abbé Gruget concludes his account as follows: “[The commander] might have wanted to save them, but that would have meant compromising himself with the revolutionary court. 10. He preferred, like Pilate, to act and pronounce against his conscience. He gave the order to shoot…”. ↑
11. Positio, p. 152-154. ↑
12. In the transfer note sent by the Revolutionary Committee to the President of the Criminal Court, the signatories write: “We are sending you, brother and friend, an interrogation of Langellerie, an ex-refractory priest. We are counting on your zeal to speed up his trial. Bread is scarce. Greetings and brotherhood.” (Positio, p. 155.) ↑
13. They were arrested on the denunciation of a certain Maillard, whom Mme de Luigné had once charitably raised. Imprisoned at Calvaire, Mme de Luigné and her daughter Louise-Aimée were shot at the Champ-des-martyrs on February 1, 1794, but Catherine and Françoise, although condemned to death, were spared and settled after the Revolution in Abbé Gruget’s parish (La Trinité d’Angers). 14. See Positio, p. 246 ff. ↑
15. Positio, p. 29 ff. ↑
16. Positio, p. 177-178. ↑
17. Positio, pp. 322-333. ↑
18. Interrogation of A Fournier by the Cholet revolutionary committee, December 29, 1793 (Positio, p. 168-169). ↑

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The Example of the Angers Martyrs - On the Anniversary of Their Martyrdom
by Etienne Muret

(continued)


The “Real” Mass

For our martyrs, this attachment to the Catholic faith was most often expressed in their unwavering support for the Mass of non-juring priests known as “refractory” priests.

“Refractory” priests. This is the motive most often cited in condemnations. They were condemned because they had refused to attend the Masses of sworn-in priests, i.e. constitutional priests – the “intruders”, as they were then called – and because they had attended the clandestine Masses of refractory priests[1] . For atheist revolutionaries, this question of Mass was crucial, because it is extremely revealing. The refusal of Mass by schismatic priests who had rallied to the Revolution signified their rejection of the Republic and the new order of things it intended to establish. Examples could be multiplied; here are just a few.

First, the Grillard sisters. When the judge asks Renée if she went to Mass with the priests who took the oath, she replies:

No, never!

Why didn’t you go?

Because I didn’t trust them.

On the other hand, she and her sister Marie replied that they had gone to Masses, sermons and processions organized by the refractory priests, and even to confession! The court declared them “suspected of never having attended the Mass of the sworn priests they detested” and guilty of “the most pronounced fanaticism”, and condemned them to be shot .[2]

The same applies to Marie Cassin[3] and Victoire Beauduceau[4], shot on February 1, 1794.

The first courageously confesses to the Cholet revolutionary committee:

Have you been to the Mass for refractory priests?

Yes.

Have you been to your constitutional priest’s Mass?

No.

Sent to Angers and re-interrogated by the sinister Vacheron, one of the cruelest members of the military commission, she was condemned because “she hated sworn priests, whose Mass she didn’t go to; she gave preference to non-sworn priests; she’s a fanatic”.

As for Victoire Beauduceau, she was accused of being “as guilty as a person of her sex could be” and of having “fanaticized half of Cholet before and during the Vendée war”, because she refused to call on the sworn priests she knew to marry her daughter, and never went to their Mass. Her sentence of condemnation states without batting an eyelid “that she held secret meetings at night in her home, had masses said or seemed to say masses herself [sic]”, and ends with this peremptory declaration: “The Republic needs to purge itself!”

This was also the case for the three sisters Gabrielle, Suzanne and Perrine Androuin[5] . They had the misfortune to have a brother who was a refractory priest, and they attended his Masses several times. What’s more, they have lodged refractory priests in their homes. In the margin of their interrogation, the clerk drew the fateful “F”: to be shot! This was done on February 1, 1794.

Even more lamentable: although the mother of three young children locked up with her at Calvaire, Marie Pichery[6] did not escape the shooting. Her only crime was refusing to attend “the republican Mass”. She was therefore “very fanatical”. We don’t know what happened to the children.[7]

Perrine Bourigault[8], for her part, is “fanatical to a fault” because she “likes the old priests better than the new ones, and wants them back”.

Let’s end with a pitiful case that illustrates the savagery of judges: Perrine Laurent, nicknamed “Gourdinette”, is a humble girl, simple-minded, but a friend of the good Lord, who loudly displays her religious convictions. Denounced and arrested, she is condemned. Her sentence is curt and hurtful: “Perrine Laurent, Gourdinette, daughter of Segré aged 48, arrested eight days ago, has never been to the sworn Mass, is a stupid fanatic, with no response”. [9] Margin: “F”.

Let’s face it: it’s not for reasons aestheticism or sentimental attachment that these women are so faithful to the Catholic Mass that they would die for it; it’s for what the true Mass means to them, and that’s a matter of faith. For the Mass of swearing priests, materially speaking, is strictly the same as that of the refractory ones – it’s not a new Mass! – but its source is poisoned: it is said by schismatic priests who have rallied to the revolutionary regime.


The Christian Spirit and the Meaning of Sacrifice

It’s also worth highlighting the virtues of our martyrs that reveal their profound Christian spirit. They are not worldly. They are “Gospel Christians”.

They accept their fate, because they have been trained from childhood in the spirit of sacrifice, accustomed to carrying the cross, and for them, loyalty is not an empty word.

This doesn’t mean they’re resigned sheep. They react. They resist vice and, as their attitude shows. And their reaction is not limited to simple refusal. Their loyalty is expressed positively, in deeds: they commit themselves.

In this way, the laity not only reject the “intruder” (the constitutional priest), but also help the good priests, hide them and provide for their sustenance. They apply what Dom Guéranger says about the true faithful in the note in his Année liturgique dedicated to Saint Cyril of Alexandria:

It can happen that pastors remain silent, for one cause or another, in certain circumstances where religion itself is at stake. The truly faithful are the men who, in such circumstances, draw inspiration a course of action from their baptism alone; not the pusillanimous who, under the specious pretext of submission to the established powers, wait to run to the enemy or oppose his undertakings, for a program which is not necessary and which should not be given to them.[10]

As for priests, it’s not enough for them to refuse the oath of allegiance to the civil constitution of the clergy. Following the example of Noël Pinot, they explain to their faithful why it is not possible to accept it without betraying faith and mission entrusted to them by the Church[11]. They instruct and comfort souls, we saw with Abbé Ledoyen. And that’s why, even though they’ve been hunted down, they don’t want to abandon their parish and continue their ministry clandestinely, risking their lives in the process.

The story of the Lego brothers is a remarkable illustration of this spirit of self-sacrifice in the service of souls. In 1791, René Lego was a young curate in Plessis-Grammoire. His brother, Jean-Baptiste, was still only a seminarian. As developments made his ordination highly unlikely, he decided to travel with René to Rome to be ordained a priest. Once this was done, the two brothers could very well have stayed behind and quietly waited out the Revolution. But they realized that they were needed in the Angers diocese, and returned to minister there for several months. On Christmas Eve 1793, they were caught in hiding with two other priests and arrested. Eight days later, on the day of Our Lord’s circumcision, they were guillotined.[12]

However, this wandering life, full of danger and suffering[13] , did not prevent these priests from being joyful.

Such is the case of Abbé François Chartier, vicar of Sœurdres, condemned for having “celebrated counter-revolutionary Masses in order incite listeners to the most criminal revolt against the Republic, and to annihilation of the sovereignty of the French people [sic][14] “. On his way to the scaffold on March 22, 1794, writes Abbé Gruget,

joy was painted on his face, as well as on that of those who were to share his crown. At the foot of scaffold, he gave absolution to them all, while a priest in a nearby house gave it to him. He remained prostrate on the ground until it was his turn to go to the execution. He went up there with the tranquillity that only pure consciences can have.[15]

This was also the case for Abbé Joseph Moreau, vicar of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Plaine. During his interrogation, he humorously refuted the grotesque slander he had been subjected to about the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at the sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Charité.

In fact, when the Revolution broke out, the Virgin Mary had begun to appear in an old oak tree located near the Notre-Dame de Charité chapel, a kilometer from the village of Saint-Laurent. In the wake of these apparitions, which were accompanied by numerous miracles, processions and pilgrimages multiplied and aroused the fury of the revolutionaries. On August 29, 1791, a battalion of sixty-three armed men destroyed the chapel and felled the oak tree. But the pilgrimages continued.

Abbé Moreau refused to take the oath and went underground. By night, he confered the sacraments and celebrated Mass. He then crossed the Loire with the Vendée army, following them as chaplain on their way to Gran Ville. On the return journey, unable to cross the Loire again, he remained in the Craon region. He was arrested in Combrée on the night of April 11-12, 1794. He was transferred to Angers and, on April 17, appeared before the military commission. To the extravagant and hateful questions of his judges, he counters with a subtle irony[16]:

Question. – He observed that he was imposing by saying that he never attended these processions, since it was he and others of his clique who hid in the tree to make a former good Virgin mouver [move].

Answer. – That he has never been there by day or by night, and that furthermore he couldn’t have put himself in it it [the tree] wasn’t big enough.

Q. – A him observed that if he didn’t go as a man, he went as a woman, so as not to be recognized.

R. – That he has never been there under any disguise. […]

Q. – How many rosaries and Sacred Hearts did he bless, and how many blessings did he sell?

R. – That he only blessed Sacred Hearts and even then for free.

Q. – A observed that he is becoming more and more an impudent liar, since after having said that he did not sharpen the daggers of the Vendée, it follows from his last confession that he blessed the Sacré-Coeur, which were the real daggers used by the scoundrels of the priests.

R. – That he we were talking about ordinary daggers. […]

Q. – Asked if, since he had not seen the miracles of the Blessed Virgin, he had seen the famous miracle of the resurrection of the robbers.

R. – That no, that those who were killed did not want to be resurrected for fear that the same thing would happen to them again.

Q. – How many times has he actually riden the mule of that mitred animal they call the pope?

R. – That it too far to undertake this journey.

On February 21, 1794, Noël Pinot, parish priest of Le Louroux-Béconnais, climbed the scaffold wearing his alb and stole, immolating himself to Christ the High Priest. On Good Friday, April 18, 1794, Joseph Moreau, vicar of Saint Laurent-de-la-Plaine, offered himself on the scaffold, a generous victim of his devotion to the Blessed Virgin.


The Love of Purity and the Refusal of Dishonor

A final aspect of the lives of our martyrs, particularly remarkable in the case of women, is their great love of purity. They would rather die than profane their souls through a dubious alliance, or see their virtue withered.

We see this, for example, in the story of Marie-Louise Verdier de la Sorinière, a twenty-eight-year-old girl whose family called her “la belle Lisette”, she was so beautiful and cheerful. During her first interrogation, she had had a moment of weakness in terror. But she pulled herself together. Condemned, she went to her execution with a cheerful face, singing the beautiful canticle of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, “Je mets ma confiance, Vierge en votre secours” (“I place my trust, Virgin, in your help”). Just as she was about to be shot, an officer approached her with the intention of seducing her:

“Be my wife and I’ll save your life”. But she proudly replied:

“Let me die. I prefer martyrdom to your love.” And she fell to the bullets with her sister Catherine, on February 10, 1794.[17]

The same thing happened to Mlle Perrine Ledoyen, from La Haye-Longue, near Saint-Aubin-de-Luigné. The story is reported by Abbé Gruget. While she was incarcerated at Calvaire, awaiting death, one of her neighbors came to her and offered to save her, on condition that she marry him. If it’s on this condition,” she replied, “I won’go out, and if I have to die, I’ll know how to die. I want no other husband than the one I serve, I have put my trust in him and I hope he will not abandon me[18].”

Abbé Gruget also recounts how Mme Sailland d’Épinatz protected her three daughters, Perrine, Jeanne and Madeleine, just as they were about to be massacred at the Champ-des-martyrs on February 1, 1794. This mother, worthy of the mother of the Machabees, exhorted her daughters to remain firm in their faith and not to fear the death that would open heaven to them. But the youngest was frightened. She even fell into a kind of fury when she was sought in her prison to be led to her death. When she arrived at the place of her executionone of the executioners, struck by her youth (she 23), took her by the arm and pushed her aside from those who were to be shot. But she, “sensing the danger of falling into the hands of these tigers and the risks she had to run for her innocence”, quickly returned to stand beside her mother and sisters. Then Mme Sailland, pulling from her hair a roll of gold coins she kept for her family’s use, detaching her bracelets and earrings, offered them to her executioners, asking that her daughters be shot before her, so she could witness their fidelity and be assured that they would suffer no outrage. She got her wish. Her daughters were shot before her eyes, and she was shot immediately afterwards.[19]

There were worse things. Some prisoners had to defend their chastity against dishonest actions of their executioners. Such the case with young Rose Quenion. After condemning her to death on January 24, 1794, “because she did not attend the services of sworn priests”, the sinister Vacheron nevertheless added in the margin of her interrogation: “to be examined”. Rose then attempted to escape by jumping from the third floor of her Calvaire prison, “to go and see her mother, a prisoner at the Bon-Pasteur”. Caught by the concierge, she was put in solitary confinement and finally shot on February 1st. The truth came out later: Vacheron wanted to take advantage of this girl and came to solicit her at night, but when she refused, he had her shot.

A year later, when an investigation was launched by Judge Myonnet against the Anjou terrorists, former inmates of the Calvaire prison testified. Among them, Hortense de Regnon declared that she had “heard that, on various occasions, the military commission or revolutionary committee had women, including Vacheron, brought up at night; that it was even widely rumored that they had had Rose Quenion shot only because she had resisted their solicitations”. The same judge’s report specified that “scheming women granted their favors [to members of the military commission] and, by this means, escaped and were not prosecuted […], and thus adroitly won their freedom”.[20]


Lessons for Today

Reading these accounts, how could we fail to be touched by the sufferings of all these poor people, and above all, edified by the firmness of their faith and the ardor of their love for Jesus Christ and his Church?

Each and every one of them can truly apply these words of Scripture:

Domine Deus, in simplicitate cordis mei laetus obtuli universa – Lord God, in the simplicity of my heart, joyfully, I offered everything.

Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi, fidem servavi – I have fought the good fight, I have completed my course, I have kept the faith.[21]

But it’s not enough to evoke the sacrifice of these martyrs, to unite with their suffering and admire their courage. Above all, we must imitate them.

Saint Augustine recounted in his Confessions how he struggled, before his baptism, to rid himself once and for all of his old sinful habits – his “old friends”, as he put it, who were slyly pulling at him through his garment of flesh. The sight of faithful Christians all around was a great help in this struggle.

So many children, so many girls, so many young people of all ages, so many respectable widows, so many virgins in their old age. […] I thought they were saying to me: “Can you not do what these young men and women have done? […] Throw yourself into God, don’t be afraid, he won withdraw, he won’t let you fall.[22]

Shouldn’t we do the same, imitating the example of the Angers martyrs, striving to be like them?

For if they have been faithful, with God’s grace, at the hour of the great sacrifice, it is they were faithful first in the little things, and got into the habit of renouncing themselves day after day, from their earliest childhood.

So if, in our daily lives, we happen to wonder whether it might not be clever or advantageous, at times, to make doctrinal or practical concessions, to seek accommodations with the world, to aim for the easy way out, let’s think of these martyrs.

After all, let’s face it: having to travel miles to go to Mass; having to recite the rosary every day and learn about religion; having to bear the weight and monotony of daily duty without complaint; having to endure ostracism or misunderstanding from work colleagues, friends and family you’re a traditional Catholic; not enjoying the same facilities and worldly pleasures as all those around us; being singled out and ridiculed you dress Christianly, don’t indulge in the turpitudes that everyone else commits, and don’t consent to the general sloppiness; in short, rowing against the current, constantly fighting against the spirit of the world, error, evil…. it’s difficult, tiring, painful…

Yes, no doubt, but it’s the wages of sin and the way to prove our love for God. Our martyrs did all this, and much more, in the revolutionary context in which they lived. “Will you not be able to do what these young men and women were able to do?”

And you, ladies and girls, when you are tempted to dress like the women and girls of the world, to be like the others, dressed so short and so tight, when you find that your priests exaggerate in reminding you of the rules of Christian modesty, think, too, of all those holy martyrs, who were, like you, mothers of families, wives or unmarried daughters, living in the world. What would they do or say in your place? What would they think of today’s practices and customs? No doubt fashions change, and they have changed over the last two centuries, no one disputes that, but the Christian spirit never changes, and it’s this spirit that we’ve lost and that we need to rediscover.

If our martyrs had wanted an easy, mundane life, to go with the flow, to enjoy the comforts of life, to lead an existence without history or struggle, they would never have been martyrs. We wouldn’t even talk about them. Their memory would be forgotten.

So let’s go and renew our souls them. Let us pray to them to obtain for us the same faith and fidelity as they had. In this year when we remember their triumph, let us not hesitate to draw them, in the place they rest, the faith, strength, holiness and fidelity we need to fight the battles today, until we meet them again in heaven.



Brief Bibliography

1. Andegaven. Beatificationis seu declarationis martyrii servorum Dei GUILLELMI REPIN et XCVIII sociorum in odium fidei, uti fertur, annis 1793-1794 interfecto- rum POSITIO super introductione causæ et martyrio ex officio concinnata. Romæ, Typis polyglottis Vaticanis, 1969, XCIX + 660 p.
2. Abbé Simon GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, memoir written in 1816, published by E. Queruau-Lamerie, Angers, Germain et Grassin, 1893, 129 p. (This is the manuscript that Abbé Gruget sent to Mgr Mon- tault, to which he gave the following title: Recueil des faits qui ont eu lieu à l’occasion des victimes massacrées en haine de Dieu et de la royauté et dont les corps ont été déposés dans le champ dit des martyrs, dans les mois de janvier et février 1794).
3. Victor GODARD-FAULTRIER, Le Champ-des-martyrs, Angers, Lachèse et Cie 1899 (republished by Par Hérault-éditions, 1984, 125 p.).
Chanoine François-Constant UZUREAU, Histoire du Champ-des-martyrs, Angers, 1905 (republished 1999), 227 p.
4. Abbé Thimotée-Louis HOUDEBINE, Le Champ-des-martyrs d’Avrillé, Angers, 1923, X-226 p., plans and illustrations (reprinted by Le Livre d’His- toire, Paris, 2012.)
5. Raymond PERRIN DU ROUVRAY, L’Église d’Angers pendant la Révolution, Éditions du Choletais, 1986, t. 1 and 2, 328 p.
Philippe EVANNO, Dominique LAMBERT DE LA DOUASNERIE and Jean DE VIGUERIE, Les Martyrs d’Avrillé. Catholicisme et Révolution, Chambray-lès- Tours, CLD, 1983, 109 p.
6. Yves DAOUDAL, Guillaume Repin et ses 98 compagnons, Grez-en-Bouère, DMM, “Nouveaux actes des martyrs”, 1984, 123 p.
7. Job DE ROINCÉ, Mémorial des martyrs d’Avrillé, Rennes, 1979, 109 p.
8. Le Livre d’Or des martyrs d’Avrillé, nomenclature, and the cause of beatification: Guillaume Repin and 98 companions, L’enlumineur du Roi René, Angers.
9. Jean-François COUET, Dans les prisons d’Angers sous la Terreur (1793-1794), La Roche-sur-Yon, Centre vendéen de recherches historiques, 2021, 400 p.
10. Nicolas DELAHAYE and Pierre-Marie GABORIT, Les Douze colonnes infernales de Turreau, Éditions Pays et Terroirs, 1995, 159 p.
11. Mgr Francis TROCHU, Vie du bienheureux Noël Pinot, martyr, curé du Lou- roux-Béconnais (1747-1794), Angers, H. Siraudeau, 1955 – republished by ANP, 1998, 170 p. (Review in Le Sel de la terre 88, p. 143-151).



Footnotes:

1. Among the eighty-four martyrs of the cause, twenty-eight were condemned for refusing to attend “republican Masses” and twenty-one for attending the Masses of refractory priests. ↑
2. Positio, pp. 266-268. ↑
3. Positio, p. 237-238. ↑
4. Positio, pp. 222-224. ↑
5. Positio, p. 217-218. ↑
6. Positio, p. 286-288. ↑
7. There were certainly children among the victims of the shootings. Mgr Géraud, postulator of the Repin cause, saw the jawbone of a five-year-old child among the bones collected at the Champ-des-martyrs (see Positio, p. 287). ↑
8. Positio, p. 347. ↑
9. Positio, p. 355. The same contempt can be found in Renée Martin’s sentence: “Renée Martin […], fanatical and a bit of an imbecile, she has two children, has always gone to Mass with the refractory priests and never with the constitutional ones” (Positio, p. 282). ↑
10. Liturgical year to February 9 ↑
11. See Mgr Francis TROCHU, Vie du bienheureux Noël Pinot, martyr, curé du Louroux- Béconnais (1747-1794), Angers, H. Siraudeau, 1955 reprinted by ANP, 1998, 170 p. ↑
12. Positio, pp. 18-29. ↑
13. One example among many: to avoid compromising the good people who received him and in whose homes he risked arrest, Abbé André Fardeau had built an ancient underground passageway in the middle of the Soucelles woods, closed by a trapdoor hidden under the undergrowth. He hid there for several months being discovered and arrested on the morning of August 21, 1794. ↑
14. Positio, p. 108-109. ↑
15. Positio, p. 395. The priest who gave absolution was Abbé Gruget himself, hiding in a house with a window overlooking the guillotine. ↑
16. Positio, p. 120-129. ↑
17. Their mother, Marie de la Dive, widow of Henri du Verdier de la Sorinière, had been guillotined on January 26, and their aunt, sister Rosalie du Verdier de la Sorinière, on January 27.On the martyrdom of the de la Sorinière family, see Positio, pp. 181-208. ↑
18. Abbé Simon GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, p. 61. ↑
19. Abbé Simon GRUGET, ibid. p. 43 ff. See also Positio, pp. 406-407. ↑
20. Positio, pp. 288-292. ↑
21. Offertory of the Dedication Mass and 1 Tim 4:7-8. ↑
22. Confessions, Book VIII, chap. 11. ↑