Wars of the Vendee

The Convention resolved to bring the war to an end before Octo ber, and placed the troops under the undivided command, first of Jean Lechelle and then of Louis Turreau, who had as subor dinates such men as Marceau, Kleber and Westermann. On Oct. 7 the various divisions concentrated at Bressuire, took Chatillon after two bloody engagements, and defeated the Vendeans at Cholet, Beaupreau and La Tremblaye. After this repulse, the royalists, under Stoifiet and La Rochejaquelein, attempted to rouse the Cotentin and crossed the Loire. Beaten back at Gran ville, they tried to re-enter the Vendee, but were repulsed at Angers. They re-formed at Le Mans, where they were defeated by Westermann, and the same officer annihilated the main body of the insurgents at Savenay (Dec. 1793).

Regular warfare was now at an end, although Turreau and his "infernal columns" still continued to scour the disaffected districts.

After the 9th Thermidor attempts were made to pacify the coun try. The Convention issued conciliatory proclamations allowing the Vendeans liberty of worship and guaranteeing their property.

Gen. Hoche applied these measures with great success. He re stored their cattle to the peasants who submitted. "let the priests have a few crowns." and on July 20, 1795, annihilated an émigré expedition which had been equipped in England and had seized Fort Penthievre and Quiberon. Treaties were concluded at La Jaunaie (Feb. 15, 1795) and at La Mabillaie, and were fairly well observed by the Vendeans ; and nothing remained but to cope with the feeble and scattered remnant of the Vendeans still under arms, and with the Chouans (q.v.). On July 3o, 1796, the state of

siege was raised in the western departments.

During the Hundred Days there was a revival of the Vendean war, the suppression of which occupied a large corps of Napoleon's army, and in a measure weakened him in the northern theatre of war. (See WATERLOO CAMPAIGN.) In 1832 again an abortive insurrection broke out in support of the Bourbons, at the instigation of the duchess of Berry; the Ven dean hero on this occasion was the baron de Charette.

There are numerous articles on the Vendean insurrection of

1793 in the Revue du Bas-Poitou, Revue historique de l'Anjou, Revue de Bretagne, de Vendee et d'Anjou, Revue historique de l'Ouest, Revue historique et archeologique du Maine, and La Vendee historique. See also R. Bittard des Portes, "Bibliographie historique et critique des guerres de Vendee et de la Chouannerie" in the Revue du Bas-Poitou (1903 seq.) ; C. L. Chassin, Etudes sur la Vendee et la Chouannerie (La Preparation de la guerre—La Vendee patriote—Les Pacifications de l'Ouest) (Paris, 1892 seq.), II vols. (the best general work on the subje't) ; C. Port, Les Origines de la Vendee (Paris, 1888) ; C. Leroux-Cesbron, "Correspondance des representants en mission a l'armee de l'ouest in the Nouvelle Revue retrospective (1898) ; Blachez, Bonchamps et l'insurrection vendeenne (Paris, 1902) ; P. Mautouchet, Le Conventionnel Philippeaux (Paris, 1901). On 1815 a modern work is Les Cent Jours en Vendee; le general Lamarque, by B. Lasserre (Paris, 1907) ; on 1832 see La Vendee, by Vicomte A. de Courson (1909). (R. AN.)