ABSTRACT
In 1793 a great uprising in the West of France threatened the very life of the Revolution. Country people in adjacent sections of Poitou, Anjou, and Brittany seized staves, scythes, pitchforks, and muskets, then joined to attack the forces of the Republic. They remained masters of their territory for more than six months, and a threat to the authority of successive political regimes in the West for more than six years. This uprising of 1793 and its aftermath is called as the War of the Vendée, the Vendée counterrevolution, or more simply, the Vendée. The memory of the Vendée has never stopped inspiring histories in great volume and variety. Two lines of thinking about modern society form the frame of this analysis of the Vendée. The first concerns the set of broad social changes which has commonly accompanied the growth in size and influence of cities—the process of urbanization. The second deals with the organization of rural communities.
