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On this date in 1794, one of the great royalist generals of the Vendee revolt was shot by the French Revolution’s Republican forces at Nourmoutier.

The 1793 counterrevolutioonary uprising in the Vendee had roused retired cavalryman Maurice Joseph Louis Gigost d’Elbée (English Wikipedia link | French), and he became the second commander of the Royal and Catholic Army upon the death of Jacques Cathelineau.

Unfortunately for d’Elbee, even with English support, the balance of force rather tipped in favor of Paris, and the Revolutionary government was obviously not shy about sealing its victories in blood.

D’Elbee suffered a grievous wound at the Battle of Cholet in October 1793, and for a couple of months was spirited one step ahead of the advancing Republicans.

As Charles MacFarlane writes in The French Revolution, Vol. 3, he ran out of room to run at the island of Noirmoutier.

D’Elbee was lying in bed between life and death; his wife might have escaped, but would not leave him: they were both taken. As Turreau’s soldiers entered their chamber the wounded royalist exclaimed, “Yes, here I am! Here is d’Elbee, your greatest enemy! If I had been strong enough to fight or stand upon my feet, you would not have taken me in my bed!” They kept him for five days, treating him with execrable barbarity, and then carried him in an arm-chair to the place appointed for fusilading the prisoners, and there shot him. His wife was fusiladed the next day, and her brother and brother-in-law perished in the same manner.

Mort du Général d’Elbée, by Julien Le Blant, depicts the general shot with three other royalist officers. Not pictured: Hundreds of other Vendean prisoners massacred in the aftermath of the Battle of Savenay.

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On this date in 1796, Republican France subdued the troublesome Vendee with the execution of its last great rebel.

Royalist officer Charette (English Wikipedia link | French) had assumed leadership of the anti-Republican revolt that broke out in the Vendee in 1796 — albeit with some turf rivalry with other anti-Republican figures in the area.

After a capable stretch of guerrilla campaigning, Charette had no sooner laid down his arms than the desperately counterrevolutionary English pushed for an ill-considered resumption of hostilities.

This time, the rebels took it in the shorts.

Charette, having upheld the monarchist cause long past his fellows — and much past any hope of success — became the figure the Republic had to eliminate to pacify the region. As English historian Archibald Alison has it, Charette paid a grim price for refusing to just be bought off.

Anxious to get quit of so formidable an enemy on any terms, the Directory offered [Charette] a safe retreat into England with his family and such of his followers as he might select, and a million of francs for his own maintenance. Charette replied, “I am ready to die with arms in my hands; but not to fly, and abandon my companions in misfortune. All the vessels of the Republic would not be sufficient to transport my brave soldiers into England. Far from fearing your menaces, I will myself come to seek you in your own camp.” …

This indomitable chief, however, could not long withstand the immense bodies which were now directed against him. His band was gradually reduced from seven hundred to fifty, and at last, ten followers. With this handful of heroes he long kept at bay the Republican forces; but at length, pursued on every side, and tracked out like a wild beast by bloodhounds, he was seized after a furious combat, and brought, bleeding and mutilated, but unsubdued, to the Republican headquarters. … Maltreated by the brutal soldiery, dragged along, yet dripping with blood from his wounds, before the populace of the town, weakened by loss of blood, he had need of all his strength of mind to sustain his courage; but, even in this extremity, his firmness never deserted him.

He was shot in Nantes after a perfunctory trial, refusing a blindfold and giving the orders to his own firing squad.

The execution of Charette. Mid-19th century illustration.

Napoleon, who had done well to duck a possibly career-killing assignment to the Vendee the year before and was in consequence at this very moment the Revolution’s emergent man on horseback,* paid tribute from his suitable distance to Charette’s brilliance.

Charette was a great character; the true hero of that interesting period of our Revolution, which, if it presents great misfortunes, has at least not injured our glory. He left on me the impression of real grandeur of mind; the traces of no common energy and audacity, the sparks of genius, are apparent in his actions.

* Having made his name by efficiently putting down a royalist putsch in Paris a few months before, Napoleon had wed Josephine just three weeks before Charette’s execution.

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