Abstract

The Vendée War (1793-1795) was an essential part of the French Revolution (1789-1799). A region of western France, south of Nantes, the Vendée, refused to continue obeying the new authorities of the Republic (1792), against a backdrop of forced military mobilization and anti-Catholic religious persecution. This peasant insurrection, led by nobles like Charette, suffered terrible repression, beyond military counter-insurgency. The Convention, the assembly governing the Republic, was very frightened in 1793, in a context of difficult foreign war and multiple domestic disputes. It took revenge by organizing a populicide in the Vendée. Carrier's infamous massacres in Nantes, carried out to order, were the norm, not a pathological exception. The infernal columns of the Republican army carried out the Vendée genocide. We propose to rediscover these historical facts, sometimes still hidden.