The Example of the Angers Martyrs

On the Anniversary of Their Martyrdom

by Etienne Muret

from Le Sel de la terre 127, Winter 2023-2024

(continued)

The “Real” Mass

For our martyrs, this attachment to the Catholic faith was most often expressed in their unwavering support for the Mass of non-juring priests known as “refractory” priests. 

“Refractory” priests. This is the motive most often cited in condemnations. They were condemned because they had refused to attend the Masses of sworn-in priests, i.e. constitutional priests – the “intruders”, as they were then called – and because they had attended the clandestine Masses of refractory priests[1] . For atheist revolutionaries, this question of Mass was crucial, because it is extremely revealing. The refusal of Mass by schismatic priests who had rallied to the Revolution signified their rejection of the Republic and the new order of things it intended to establish. Examples could be multiplied; here are just a few.

First, the Grillard sisters. When the judge asks Renée if she went to Mass with the priests who took the oath, she replies:

  • No, never!
  • Why didn’t you go?
  • Because I didn’t trust them.

On the other hand, she and her sister Marie replied that they had gone to Masses, sermons and processions organized by the refractory priests, and even to confession! The court declared them “suspected of never having attended the Mass of the sworn priests they detested” and guilty of “the most pronounced fanaticism”, and condemned them to be shot .[2]

The same applies to Marie Cassin[3] and Victoire Beauduceau[4] , shot on February 1, 1794.

The first courageously confesses to the Cholet revolutionary committee:

  • Have you been to the Mass for refractory priests?
  • Yes.
  • Have you been to your constitutional priest’s Mass?
  • No.

Sent to Angers and re-interrogated by the sinister Vacheron, one of the cruelest members of the military commission, she was condemned because “she hated sworn priests, whose Mass she didn’t go to; she gave preference to non-sworn priests; she’s a fanatic”.

As for Victoire Beauduceau, she was accused of being “as guilty as a person of her sex could be” and of having “fanaticized half of Cholet before and during the Vendée war”, because she refused to call on the sworn priests she knew to marry her daughter, and never went to their Mass. Her sentence of condemnation states without batting an eyelid “that she held secret meetings at night in her home, had masses said or seemed to say masses herself [sic]”, and ends with this peremptory declaration: “The Republic needs to purge itself!”

This was also the case for the three sisters Gabrielle, Suzanne and Perrine Androuin[5] . They had the misfortune to have a brother who was a refractory priest, and they attended his Masses several times. What’s more, they have lodged refractory priests in their homes. In the margin of their interrogation, the clerk drew the fateful “F”: to be shot! This was done on February 1, 1794.

Even more lamentable: although the mother of three young children locked up with her at Calvaire, Marie Pichery[6] did not escape the shooting. Her only crime was refusing to attend “the republican Mass”. She was therefore “very fanatical”. We don’t know what happened to the children.[7]

Perrine Bourigault[8] , for her part, is “fanatical to a fault” because she “likes the old priests better than the new ones, and wants them back”.

Let’s end with a pitiful case that illustrates the savagery of judges: Perrine Laurent, nicknamed “Gourdinette”, is a humble girl, simple-minded, but a friend of the good Lord, who loudly displays her religious convictions. Denounced and arrested, she is condemned. Her sentence is curt and hurtful: “Perrine Laurent, Gourdinette, daughter of Segré aged 48, arrested eight days ago, has never been to the sworn Mass, is a stupid fanatic, with no response”. [9] Margin: “F”.

Let’s face it: it’s not for reasons aestheticism or sentimental attachment that these women are so faithful to the Catholic Mass that they would die for it; it’s for what the true Mass means to them, and that’s a matter of faith. For the Mass of swearing priests, materially speaking, is strictly the same as that of the refractory ones – it’s not a new Mass! – but its source is poisoned: it is said by schismatic priests who have rallied to the revolutionary regime.

The Christian Spirit and the Meaning of Sacrifice

It’s also worth highlighting the virtues of our martyrs that reveal their profound Christian spirit. They are not worldly. They are “Gospel Christians”.

They accept their fate, because they have been trained from childhood in the spirit of sacrifice, accustomed to carrying the cross, and for them, loyalty is not an empty word.

This doesn’t mean they’re resigned sheep. They react. They resist vice and, as their attitude shows. And their reaction is not limited to simple refusal. Their loyalty is expressed positively, in deeds: they commit themselves.

In this way, the laity not only reject the “intruder” (the constitutional priest), but also help the good priests, hide them and provide for their sustenance. They apply what Dom Guéranger says about the true faithful in the note in his Année liturgique dedicated to Saint Cyril of Alexandria:

It can happen that pastors remain silent, for one cause or another, in certain circumstances where religion itself is at stake. The truly faithful are the men who, in such circumstances, draw inspiration a course of action from their baptism alone; not the pusillanimous who, under the specious pretext of submission to the established powers, wait to run to the enemy or oppose his undertakings, for a program which is not necessary and which should not be given to them.[10]

As for priests, it’s not enough for them to refuse the oath of allegiance to the civil constitution of the clergy. Following the example of Noël Pinot, they explain to their faithful why it is not possible to accept it without betraying faith and mission entrusted to them by the Church[11] . They instruct and comfort souls, we saw with Abbé Ledoyen. And that’s why, even though they’ve been hunted down, they don’t want to abandon their parish and continue their ministry clandestinely, risking their lives in the process.

The story of the Lego brothers is a remarkable illustration of this spirit of self-sacrifice in the service of souls. In 1791, René Lego was a young curate in Plessis-Grammoire. His brother, Jean-Baptiste, was still only a seminarian. As developments made his ordination highly unlikely, he decided to travel with René to Rome to be ordained a priest. Once this was done, the two brothers could very well have stayed behind and quietly waited out the Revolution. But they realized that they were needed in the Angers diocese, and returned to minister there for several months. On Christmas Eve 1793, they were caught in hiding with two other priests and arrested. Eight days later, on the day of Our Lord’s circumcision, they were guillotined.[12]

However, this wandering life, full of danger and suffering[13] , did not prevent these priests from being joyful.

Such is the case of Abbé François Chartier, vicar of Sœurdres, condemned for having “celebrated counter-revolutionary Masses in order incite listeners to the most criminal revolt against the Republic, and to annihilation of the sovereignty of the French people [sic][14] “. On his way to the scaffold on March 22, 1794, writes Abbé Gruget,

joy was painted on his face, as well as on that of those who were to share his crown. At the foot of scaffold, he gave absolution to them all, while a priest in a nearby house gave it to him. He remained prostrate on the ground until it was his turn to go to the execution. He went up there with the tranquillity that only pure consciences can have.[15]

This was also the case for Abbé Joseph Moreau, vicar of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Plaine. During his interrogation, he humorously refuted the grotesque slander he had been subjected to about the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at the sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Charité.

In fact, when the Revolution broke out, the Virgin Mary had begun to appear in an old oak tree located near the Notre-Dame de Charité chapel, a kilometer from the village of Saint-Laurent. In the wake of these apparitions, which were accompanied by numerous miracles, processions and pilgrimages multiplied and aroused the fury of the revolutionaries. On August 29, 1791, a battalion of sixty-three armed men destroyed the chapel and felled the oak tree. But the pilgrimages continued.

Abbé Moreau refused to take the oath and went underground. By night, he confered the sacraments and celebrated M

ass. He then crossed the Loire with the Vendée army, following them as chaplain on their way to Gran Ville. On the return journey, unable to cross the Loire again, he remained in the Craon region. He was arrested in Combrée on the night of April 11-12, 1794. He was transferred to Angers and, on April 17, appeared before the military commission. To the extravagant and hateful questions of his judges, he counters with a subtle irony[16]:

Question. – He observed that he was imposing by saying that he never attended these processions, since it was he and others of his clique who hid in the tree to make a former good Virgin mouver [move].

Answer. – That he has never been there by day or by night, and that furthermore he couldn’t have put himself in it it [the tree] wasn’t big enough.

Q. – A him observed that if he didn’t go as a man, he went as a woman, so as not to be recognized.

R. – That he has never been there under any disguise. […]

Q. – How many rosaries and Sacred Hearts did he bless, and how many blessings did he sell?

R. – That he only blessed Sacred Hearts and even then for free.

Q. – A observed that he is becoming more and more an impudent liar, since after having said that he did not sharpen the daggers of the Vendée, it follows from his last confession that he blessed the Sacré-Coeur, which were the real daggers used by the scoundrels of the priests.

R. – That he we were talking about ordinary daggers. […]

Q. – Asked if, since he had not seen the miracles of the Blessed Virgin, he had seen the famous miracle of the resurrection of the robbers.

R. – That no, that those who were killed did not want to be resurrected for fear that the same thing would happen to them again.

Q. – How many times has he actually riden the mule of that mitred animal they call the pope?

R. – That it too far to undertake this journey.

On February 21, 1794, Noël Pinot, parish priest of Le Louroux-Béconnais, climbed the scaffold wearing his alb and stole, immolating himself to Christ the High Priest. On Good Friday, April 18, 1794, Joseph Moreau, vicar of Saint Laurent-de-la-Plaine, offered himself on the scaffold, a generous victim of his devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

The Love of Purity and the Refusal of Dishonor

A final aspect of the lives of our martyrs, particularly remarkable in the case of women, is their great love of purity. They would rather die than profane their souls through a dubious alliance, or see their virtue withered.

We see this, for example, in the story of Marie-Louise Verdier de la Sorinière, a twenty-eight-year-old girl whose family called her “la belle Lisette”, she was so beautiful and cheerful. During her first interrogation, she had had a moment of weakness in terror. But she pulled herself together. Condemned, she went to her execution with a cheerful face, singing the beautiful canticle of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, “Je mets ma confiance, Vierge en votre secours” (“I place my trust, Virgin, in your help”). Just as she was about to be shot, an officer approached her with the intention of seducing her:

“Be my wife and I’ll save your life”. But she proudly replied:

“Let me die. I prefer martyrdom to your love.” And she fell to the bullets with her sister Catherine, on February 10, 1794.[17]

The same thing happened to Mlle Perrine Ledoyen, from La Haye-Longue, near Saint-Aubin-de-Luigné. The story is reported by Abbé Gruget. While she was incarcerated at Calvaire, awaiting death, one of her neighbors came to her and offered to save her, on condition that she marry him. If it’s on this condition,” she replied, “I won’go out, and if I have to die, I’ll know how to die. I want no other husband than the one I serve, I have put my trust in him and I hope he will not abandon me[18].”

Abbé Gruget also recounts how Mme Sailland d’Épinatz protected her three daughters, Perrine, Jeanne and Madeleine, just as they were about to be massacred at the Champ-des-martyrs on February 1, 1794. This mother, worthy of the mother of the Machabees, exhorted her daughters to remain firm in their faith and not to fear the death that would open heaven to them. But the youngest was frightened. She even fell into a kind of fury when she was sought in her prison to be led to her death. When she arrived at the place of her executionone of the executioners, struck by her youth (she 23), took her by the arm and pushed her aside from those who were to be shot. But she, “sensing the danger of falling into the hands of these tigers and the risks she had to run for her innocence”, quickly returned to stand beside her mother and sisters. Then Mme Sailland, pulling from her hair a roll of gold coins she kept for her family’s use, detaching her bracelets and earrings, offered them to her executioners, asking that her daughters be shot before her, so she could witness their fidelity and be assured that they would suffer no outrage. She got her wish. Her daughters were shot before her eyes, and she was shot immediately afterwards.[19]

There were worse things. Some prisoners had to defend their chastity against dishonest actions of their executioners. Such the case with young Rose Quenion. After condemning her to death on January 24, 1794, “because she did not attend the services of sworn priests”, the sinister Vacheron nevertheless added in the margin of her interrogation: “to be examined”. Rose then attempted to escape by jumping from the third floor of her Calvaire prison, “to go and see her mother, a prisoner at the Bon-Pasteur”. Caught by the concierge, she was put in solitary confinement and finally shot on February 1st. The truth came out later: Vacheron wanted to take advantage of this girl and came to solicit her at night, but when she refused, he had her shot.

A year later, when an investigation was launched by Judge Myonnet against the Anjou terrorists, former inmates of the Calvaire prison testified. Among them, Hortense de Regnon declared that she had “heard that, on various occasions, the military commission or revolutionary committee had women, including Vacheron, brought up at night; that it was even widely rumored that they had had Rose Quenion shot only because she had resisted their solicitations”. The same judge’s report specified that “scheming women granted their favors [to members of the military commission] and, by this means, escaped and were not prosecuted […], and thus adroitly won their freedom”.[20]

Lessons for Today

Reading these accounts, how could we fail to be touched by the sufferings of all these poor people, and above all, edified by the firmness of their faith and the ardor of their love for Jesus Christ and his Church?

Each and every one of them can truly apply these words of Scripture:

Domine Deus, in simplicitate cordis mei laetus obtuli universa – Lord God, in the simplicity of my heart, joyfully, I offered everything.

Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi, fidem servavi – I have fought the good fight, I have completed my course, I have kept the faith.[21]

But it’s not enough to evoke the sacrifice of these martyrs, to unite with their suffering and admire their courage. Above all, we must imitate them.

Saint Augustine recounted in his Confessions how he struggled, before his baptism, to rid himself once and for all of his old sinful habits – his “old friends”, as he put it, who were slyly pulling at him through his garment of flesh. The sight of faithful Christians all around was a great help in this struggle.

So many children, so many girls, so many young people of all ages, so many respectable widows, so many virgins in their old age. […] I thought they were saying to me: “Can you not do what these young men and women have done? […] Throw yourself into God, don’t be afraid, he won withdraw, he won’t let you fall.[22]

Shouldn’t we do the same, imitating the example of the Angers martyrs, striving to be like them?

For if they have been faithful, with God’s grace, at the hour of the great sacrifice, it is they were faithful first in the little things, and got into the habit of renouncing themselves day after day, from their earliest childhood.

So if, in our daily lives, we happen to wonder whether it might not be clever or advantageous, at times, to make doctrinal or practical concessions, to seek accommodations with the world, to aim for the easy way out, let’s think of these martyrs.

After all, let’s face it: having to travel miles to go to Mass; having to recite the rosary every day and learn about religion; having to bear the weight and monotony of daily duty without complaint; having to endure ostracism or misunderstanding from work colleagues, friends and family you’re a traditional Catholic; not enjoying the same facilities and worldly pleasures as all those around us; being singled out and ridiculed you dress Christianly, don’t indulge in the turpitudes that everyone else commits, and don’t consent to the general sloppiness; in short, rowing against the current, constantly fighting against the spirit of the world, error, evil…. it’s difficult, tiring, painful…

Yes, no doubt, but it’s the wages of sin and the way to prove our love for God. Our martyrs did all this, and much more, in the revolutionary context in which they lived. “Will you not be able to do what these young men and women were able to do?”

And you, ladies and girls, when you are tempted to dress like the women and girls of the world, to be like the others, dressed so short and so tight, when you find that your priests exaggerate in reminding you of the rules of Christian modesty, think, too, of all those holy martyrs, who were, like you, mothers of families, wives or unmarried daughters, living in the world. What would they do or say in your place? What would they think of today’s practices and customs? No doubt fashions change, and they have changed over the last two centuries, no one disputes that, but the Christian spirit never changes, and it’s this spirit that we’ve lost and that we need to rediscover.

If our martyrs had wanted an easy, mundane life, to go with the flow, to enjoy the comforts of life, to lead an existence without history or struggle, they would never have been martyrs. We wouldn’t even talk about them. Their memory would be forgotten.

So let’s go and renew our souls them. Let us pray to them to obtain for us the same faith and fidelity as they had. In this year when we remember their triumph, let us not hesitate to draw them, in the place they rest, the faith, strength, holiness and fidelity we need to fight the battles today, until we meet them again in heaven.

✵

Brief Bibliography

  • Andegaven. Beatificationis seu declarationis martyrii servorum Dei GUILLELMI REPIN et XCVIII sociorum in odium fidei, uti fertur, annis 1793-1794 interfecto- rum POSITIO super introductione causæ et martyrio ex officio concinnata. Romæ, Typis polyglottis Vaticanis, 1969, XCIX + 660 p.
  • Abbé Simon GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, memoir written in 1816, published by E. Queruau-Lamerie, Angers, Germain et Grassin, 1893, 129 p. (This is the manuscript that Abbé Gruget sent to Mgr Mon- tault, to which he gave the following title: Recueil des faits qui ont eu lieu à l’occasion des victimes massacrées en haine de Dieu et de la royauté et dont les corps ont été déposés dans le champ dit des martyrs, dans les mois de janvier et février 1794).
  • Victor GODARD-FAULTRIER, Le Champ-des-martyrs, Angers, Lachèse et Cie 1899 (republished by Par Hérault-éditions, 1984, 125 p.).
  • Chanoine François-Constant UZUREAU, Histoire du Champ-des-martyrs, Angers, 1905 (republished 1999), 227 p.
  • Abbé Thimotée-Louis HOUDEBINE, Le Champ-des-martyrs d’Avrillé, Angers, 1923, X-226 p., plans and illustrations (reprinted by Le Livre d’His- toire, Paris, 2012.)
  • Raymond PERRIN DU ROUVRAY, L’Église d’Angers pendant la Révolution, Éditions du Choletais, 1986, t. 1 and 2, 328 p.
  • Philippe EVANNO, Dominique LAMBERT DE LA DOUASNERIE and Jean DE VIGUERIE, Les Martyrs d’Avrillé. Catholicisme et Révolution, Chambray-lès- Tours, CLD, 1983, 109 p.
  • Yves DAOUDAL, Guillaume Repin et ses 98 compagnons, Grez-en-Bouère, DMM, “Nouveaux actes des martyrs”, 1984, 123 p.
  • Job DE ROINCÉ, Mémorial des martyrs d’Avrillé, Rennes, 1979, 109 p.
  • Le Livre d’Or des martyrs d’Avrillé, nomenclature, and the cause of beatification: Guillaume Repin and 98 companions, L’enlumineur du Roi René, Angers.
  • Jean-François COUET, Dans les prisons d’Angers sous la Terreur (1793-1794), La Roche-sur-Yon, Centre vendéen de recherches historiques, 2021, 400 p.
  • Nicolas DELAHAYE and Pierre-Marie GABORIT, Les Douze colonnes infernales de Turreau, Éditions Pays et Terroirs, 1995, 159 p.
  • Mgr Francis TROCHU, Vie du bienheureux Noël Pinot, martyr, curé du Lou- roux-Béconnais (1747-1794), Angers, H. Siraudeau, 1955 – republished by ANP, 1998, 170 p. (Review in Le Sel de la terre 88, p. 143-151).

Stained glass window from the Champ-des-martyrs chapel (Avrillé).

  1. – Among the eighty-four martyrs of the cause, twenty-eight were condemned for refusing to attend “republican Masses” and twenty-one for attending the Masses of refractory priests. ↑
  2. – Positio, pp. 266-268. ↑
  3. – Positio, p. 237-238. ↑
  4. – Positio, pp. 222-224. ↑
  5. – Positio, p. 217-218. ↑
  6. – Positio, p. 286-288. ↑
  7. – There were certainly children among the victims of the shootings. Mgr Géraud, postulator of the Repin cause, saw the jawbone of a five-year-old child among the bones collected at the Champ-des-martyrs (see Positio, p. 287). ↑
  8. – Positio, p. 347. ↑
  9. – Positio, p. 355. The same contempt can be found in Renée Martin’s sentence: “Renée Martin […], fanatical and a bit of an imbecile, she has two children, has always gone to Mass with the refractory priests and never with the constitutional ones” (Positio, p. 282). ↑
  10. – Liturgical year to February 9 ↑
  11. – See Mgr Francis TROCHU, Vie du bienheureux Noël Pinot, martyr, curé du Louroux- Béconnais (1747-1794), Angers, H. Siraudeau, 1955 – reprinted by ANP, 1998, 170 p. ↑
  12. – Positio, pp. 18-29. ↑
  13. – One example among many: to avoid compromising the good people who received him and in whose homes he risked arrest, Abbé André Fardeau had built an ancient underground passageway in the middle of the Soucelles woods, closed by a trapdoor hidden under the undergrowth. He hid there for several months being discovered and arrested on the morning of August 21, 1794. ↑
  14. – Positio, p. 108-109. ↑
  15. – Positio, p. 395. The priest who gave absolution was Abbé Gruget himself, hiding in a house with a window overlooking the guillotine. ↑
  16. Positio, p. 120-129. ↑
  17. – Their mother, Marie de la Dive, widow of Henri du Verdier de la Sorinière, had been guillotined on January 26, and their aunt, sister Rosalie du Verdier de la Sorinière, on January 27.On the martyrdom of the de la Sorinière family, see Positio, pp. 181-208. ↑
  18. – Abbé Simon GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, p. 61. ↑
  19. – Abbé Simon GRUGET, ibid. p. 43 ff. See also Positio, pp. 406-407. ↑
  20. – Positio, pp. 288-292. ↑
  21. – Offertory of the Dedication Mass and 1 Tim 4:7-8. ↑
  22. – Confessions, Book VIII, chap. 11. ↑