ABSTRACT
At the beginning of March 1793, riots broke out in the west of France. It was the beginning of a revolt that soon covered six departments, including the Vendée, the name by which the revolt is usually referred to (see document 13.3). In the following extract from the memoirs of Jeanne Ambroise de Sapinaud (1736–1820), the widow of a local noble whose family was closely involved in the revolt, we clearly see not only some of the reasons for the uprising, but also the tendency of peasants in revolt to seek out nobles to ‘lead’ them and thereby take responsibility. Also note the manner in which the rebels obtained weapons at the beginning of their struggle.
The war in the Vendée commenced on 5 March 1793. Peasants rose in revolt near Buffelière [we do not know which village she is referring to]; they then scattered into the neighbouring parishes and came to find M. Sapinaud de Bois-Huguet, better known by the name la Verrie. ‘We take you,’ they told him, ‘as our general, and you will march at our head.’ Sapinaud tried to make them understand the misfortunes that they were going to bring down on themselves and the Vendée. ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘you will meet more than your match. What can we do? Only one department against eighty-two! We shall be crushed. I do not speak for myself; I hate life since I was witness to all the crimes and the barbarities which our unfortunate patrie has accumulated, and I would rather die at your head, fighting for my God and my king, than be dragged to some prison as they have done to all my peers. Believe me, go home, and do not destroy yourselves uselessly.’ Those brave peasants, far from yielding to his reason, showed him that they could never submit to a government that had taken their priests away, and had imprisoned their king. ‘They have deceived us,’ they said; ‘why do they send us constitutional priests? They are not the priests who attended our fathers on their death beds, and we do not want them to bless our children.’ My brother-in-law did not know what side to take; he hesitated to give himself up to those good peasants, and expose himself to an almost certain death; but, seeing their obstinacy, he finished by ceding, put himself at their head, and left the same day for Les Herbiers. The peasants of La Gaubretière joined them. Passing by the château of Sourdy, they forced Sapinaud de La Rairie to march under the orders of his uncle. That same evening, that undisciplined troop, having for its defence nothing more than a few hunting rifles, sickles and sticks, arrived in front of Les Herbiers.
The inhabitants had been warned and had gathered as many patriots as they could. Two companies of Blues [revolutionary soldiers] had been sent to help them with four or five canons. Sapinaud de la Verrie, who was at the head of the badly armed troops, was willing to sacrifice his life and waited to be killed. Bullets whistled around him, he did not hear a thing. However, in less than two hours, the Vendéans had made themselves masters of the town and had chased out the Blues. Not one of our own was killed, two men only had been wounded. The number of deaths on the side of the patriots was considerable and they abandoned a great quantity of rifles which were distributed among our peasants.
Source: Mémoires de Madame de Sapinaud sur la Vendée (Paris, 1824), pp. 31–4.https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781032618814/e9ac31eb-0a68-4fdc-b417-e6e5b1e67c6c/content/fig14_Unfig_001.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>