ABSTRACT
The French Revolution brought some rapid changes to the survey area, and did so surprisingly quickly: communes were formed in 1790, the Revolutionary language of citoyen and bourgeois was adopted in local records, and new officials were soon active. Commune minutes survive for Ruffiac from 1790–94 (ADM 204ES3); and although the miller of Bodel (just north of Ruffiac) was elected mayor of Caro, he quickly became involved in a complicated and protracted dispute with the Revolutionary authorities – and soon found himself ex-mayor (Kerrand 1988). Most of the local priests refused to take the oath, an issue on which the local population could have and express views – as did a man buying tobacco in La Gacilly in April 1791 (Marsille 1988). Many of the priests soon fled, although the priest of La Haute Boixière continued to register baptism and marriage for a few years. The lands and buildings of Ruffiac Priory, for so long a dominant seigneurial force in the core survey area, were sold between 1790 and 1792 (Le Mené 1904), within ten years of the Vicar-General’s last visit from Redon to view and sign the parish registers.
