La Vendée

La Vendée, western French region responsible for counter-revolutionary risings (1793-1796) against the Revolutionary government. The underlying causes of these were the strong religious beliefs of its peasant population, the controls which the Revolutionary authorities imposed on the Roman Catholic Church, and the imposition of conscription in February 1793. Rioting began at Cholet on March 4 and the most serious rising followed on March 13, under the peasant leaders Jacques Cathelineau, Gaston Bourdic, and Jean-Nicolas Stofflet, who were joined by a number of Royalist nobles. In June the rebels, 30,000 strong, now describing themselves as “the Catholic and Royal Army”, captured the important towns of Saumur and Angers. At first the government was seriously threatened, at a time when there were also risings in Normandy, Lyons, and Marseille, and when it had just been defeated at the Battle of Neerwinden, but on October 17 its reinforced army met and heavily defeated the Vendéans, by then numbering 65,000, at Cholet.

Further defeats for the rebels followed at the Battle of Le Mans on December 12, during and after which 15,000 were said to have died or been killed as prisoners, and at Savenay 11 days later when remnants were trying to recross the River Loire. During the following year the government continued to revenge itself on the people of the region, so provoking further risings though on a smaller scale, and in December 1794 a more liberal government announced an amnesty to be followed by grants to the Vendéans of religious freedom and exemption from conscription. In June 1795 François-Athanase Charette, one of the noble leaders of the 1793 rising, joined the British landing at Quiberon Bay in Brittany, but its defeat and his execution finally ended all organized Vendéan resistance.