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252 A French Genoci de

The document discusses the systematic destruction of the Vendée region during the French Revolution, highlighting the pride of officials in their brutal operations that left the area desolate. It details proposals for renaming the region and redistributing land to loyal farmers and refugees, as the Convention sought to erase the remnants of counterrevolutionary sentiment. The text reflects on the aftermath of violence, describing the Vendée as a 'vast desert' and a testament to the 'revenge of liberty.'

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Hiram Edson
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16 views1 page

252 A French Genoci de

The document discusses the systematic destruction of the Vendée region during the French Revolution, highlighting the pride of officials in their brutal operations that left the area desolate. It details proposals for renaming the region and redistributing land to loyal farmers and refugees, as the Convention sought to erase the remnants of counterrevolutionary sentiment. The text reflects on the aftermath of violence, describing the Vendée as a 'vast desert' and a testament to the 'revenge of liberty.'

Uploaded by

Hiram Edson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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252 A FRENCH GENOCIDE

Francastel repeatedly said, “will end only when there are no more inhabi­
tants in that unfortunate land.”30
W ith pride and unconcealed joy, Bourbotte and Turreau themselves
prepared a report on operations: “You would have to travel far in these re­
gions before encountering a man or a cottage. We have left behind us only
corpses and ruins.”31 It was a matter “o f sacrificing everything to the na­
tional vengeance.”
In April and M ay 1794, the Convention declared itself “reassured”: “the
hideous hydra” o f the Vendée “can no longer speak counterrevolution, since
it is all it can do to survive.”32 On 18 brumaire o f the year I, Merlin had even
proposed to the Convention removing “the name of Vendée from the table
o f departments,” in order to replace it with the more evocative name o f
“department Vengé”;33 the measure was applied a few months later. There­
after, certain place names, “soiled by the presence o f brigands,” were changed:
the île Bouin became the île Marat, Noirmoutier became the île de la Mon­
tagne, and so on.34 Even the idea o f colonization was proposed in order
to redevelop the land now devoid o f people: “Few citizens remain in those
regions that are so beautiful and so fertile; one o f the finest regions o f the
Republic is almost totally abandoned, without agriculture, and offers to
the eyes o f the traveler who trembles as he goes through it only ashes and
corpses”; it is a “vast desert, a monument to the revenge o f liberty.” Con­
sequently, Merlin proposed a decree, the four .final paragraphs o f which set
forth concrete suggestions for carrying it out:

3. Two representatives o f the people will travel to Nantes and to all


the towns o f the Vendée, and will prepare an inventory o f the legacies
formerly possessed by the rebels and all those who took part in the war
o f Vendée and have not abjured their error.
4. These legacies will be distributed to fanners who have remained
loyal in the region and who have the right to indemnities.
5. To the refugees from Germany who have abandoned their prop­
erty because o f their patriotism.
6. The departments will send to the representatives o f the people
in the Vendée one family o f impoverished farmers per canton, to re­
ceive a piece o f land to farm as their property. The departments will
supply them with the means to travel to the region and the expenses
advanced by them will be reimbursed by the national treasury.35

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