in sympathies. The leaders of these first risings were men of humble birth, such as J. Cathelineau, a pedlar, J. N. Stofflet, a gamekeeper, and the barber Gaston. Gholet, Bressuire, Fontenay-le-Comte and Samur were surprised. The influence of the priests kept up the fanaticism of the peasants, and a great manifestation of religious feeling took place on Easter eve, but the republican soldiers taken prisoners were often maltreated and even tortured.
These first successes of the Vendéans coincided with grave republican reverses on the frontier—war with England, Holland and Spain, the defeat of Neerwinden and the defection of Dumouriez. The emigres then began to throw in their lot with the Vendéans. Royalist nobles like the marquis de Bonchamp, F. A. Charette de la Contrie, Gigot d'Elbee, Henri de la Rochejaquelein and the marquis de Lescure placed themselves at the head of the peasants. Although several of these leaders were Voltairians, they held up Louis XVI., who had been executed in January 1793, as a martyr to Catholicism, and the Vendéans, who had hitherto styled themselves the Christian Army, now adopted the name of the Catholic and Royal Army.
The Convention took measures against the émigrés and the refractory priests. By a decree of the 10th of March 1793 every person accused of taking part in the counter-revolutionary revolts, or of wearing the white cockade (the royalist emblem), was declared an outlaw. The prisoners were to be tried by military commissions, and the sole penalty was death with confiscation of property. The Convention also sent representatives on mission into Vendée to effect the purging of the municipalities, the reorganization of the national guards in the republican towns, and the active prosecution of the revolutionary propaganda. These measures proving insufficient, a decree was promulgated on the 30th of April 1793 for the despatch of regular troops; but, in spite of their failure to capture Nantes (where Cathelineau was mortally wounded), the successes of the Vendéans continued. On the 31st of July, therefore, at Barere's suggestion, it was decreed that the woods of the Vendée should be burnt, the harvest carried off to safe places in rear of the army, the cattle seized, the women and children concentrated in camps in the interior, and that every male from the age of sixteen in the neighbouring regions should be called upon to take arms. Further, on the 1st of August, the troops that had formed the garrison of Mainz, which were unavailable against foreign enemies by the terms of their capitulation to the Austrians, were ordered to Vendée. The programme was carried out by the so-called “infernal columns.”
At the end of August 1793, the republicans had three armies in the Vendée—the army of Rochelle, the army of Brest and the Mayençais; but their generals were either ciphers, like C. P. H. Ronsin, or divided among themselves, like J. A. Rossignol and J. B. C. Canclaux. They were uncertain whether to cut off the Vendéans from the sea or to drive them westwards; and moreover, their men were undisciplined. Although the peasants had to leave their chiefs and work on the land, the Vendéans still remained formidable opponents. They were equipped partly with arms supplied by England, and partly with fowling-pieces, which at that period were superior to the small-arms used by the regular troops, and their intimate knowledge of the country gave them an immense advantage. They gathered and burst like a storm on their enemies, and, if repulsed, dispersed at the famous order, “Egaillez-vous les gars,” to unite again some days later.
The dissensions of the republican leaders and the demoralizing tactics of the Vendéans resulted in republican defeats at Chantonnay, Torfou, Coron, St Lambert, Mohtaigu and St Fulgent. The Convention resolved to bring the war to an end before October, and placed the troops under the undivided command, first of Jean Lechelle and then of Louis Turreau, who had as subordinates such men as Marceau, Kleber and Westermann. On the 7th of October the various divisions concentrated at Bressuire, took Chatillon after two bloody engagements, and defeated the Vendéans at Cholet, Beaupreau and La Tremblaye. After this repulse, the royalists, under Stofflet and La Rochejaquelein, attempted to rouse the Cotentin and crossed the Loire. Beaten back at Granville, they tried to re-enter the Vendée, but were repulsed at Angers. They re-formed at Le Mans, where they were defeated by Westermann, and the same officer definitively annihilated the main body of the insurgents at Savenay (December 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 country. The Convention issued conciliatory proclamations allowing the Vendéans liberty of worship and guaranteeing their property. General Hoche applied these measures with great success. He restored their cattle to the peasants who submitted, “let the priests have a few crowns,” and on the 20th of July 1795 annihilated an emigre expedition which had been equipped in England and had seized Fort Penthievre and Quiberon. Treaties were concluded at La Jaunaie (February 15, 1795) and at La Mabillaie, and were fairly well observed by the Vendéans; and nothing remained but to cope with the feeble and scattered remnant of the Vendéans still under arms, and with the Chouans (q.v.). On the 30th of July 1796 the state of siege was raised in the western departments.
During the Hundred Days there was a revival of the Vendéan 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 Vendéan 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 Vendée et d’Anjou, Revue historique de l'Ouest, Revue historique et archeologique du Maine, and La Vendée historique. See also R. Bittard des Portes, "Bibliographic historique et critique des guerres de Vendée et de la Chouannerie" in the Revue du Bas-Poitou (1903 -seq.); C. L. Cbassin,, Études sur la Vendée et la Chouannerie (La Preparation de la guerre—La Vendée patriote—Les Pacifications de l'Ouest), Paris, 1892 seq., 11 vols, (the best general work on the subject); C; Port, Les Origines de la Vendée (Paris, 1888); C. Leroux-Cesbron, "Correspondance des representants en mission a l'armee de l'ouest (1794-95)" in the Nouvelle Revue retrospective (1898); Blachez, Bonchamps et l’insurrection vendéenne (Paris, 1902); P. Mautouchet, Le Conventionnel Philippeaux (Paris, 1901), On 1815 a modern work is Les Cent Jours en Vendue; le géneral Lamarque, by B. Lasserre (Paris, 1907) ; on 1832 see La Vendée, by Vicomte A. de Courson (1909). (R. A.*)
VENDÉMIAIRE (from Lat. vindemia, vintage), the name given during the French Revolution to the first month of the year in the Republican Calendar. Vendemiaire began on the 22nd, 23rd or 24th of September, and ended on the 22nd, 23rd or 24th of October according to the year, and was the season of the vintage in the wine districts of northern France. In accordance with the suggestion of Fabre d'Eglantine, each of the days of the republican year was consecrated to some useful object. For' instance, 1 Vendemiaire was the festival of the grape, 10 Vendemiaire of the vat, 13 Vendemiaire of the pumpkin, 15 Vendemiaire of the ass, 20 Vendemiaire of the wine-press, and 30 Vendemiaire of the cask. The most important event in this month was the quelling of the royalist rising on 13 Vendemiaire year IV. (4th of October 1795), in which General Bonaparte (afterwards the emperor Napoleon) distinguished himself by his energy and skill in using artillery.
See Baron R. de Larcy, Le 13 Vendemiaire (Paris, 1872).
VENDETTA (Ital. from Lat. vindicta, revenge, vindicate, to defend oneself), the term applied to the custom of the family feud, by which the nearest kinsman of a murdered man was obliged to take up the quarrel and avenge his death. From being an obligation upon the nearest, it grew to be an obligation on all the relatives, involving families in bitter private wars among themselves. It is a development of that stage in civilization common to all primitive communities, when the injury done was held to be more than personal, a wrong done to the whole gens.
