MICHAEL PORTILLO
The historian I’d come to meet, Jean Clement Martin, picked me up in his car near Poitiers station, where poring over a road map he outlined our itinerary.

JEAN CLEMENT MARTIN
Today we are driving from Poitiers to Cholet, crossing the invisible border of what is called La Vendee Militaire. In Cholet a huge battle occurred in October 1793, and the little town of Cholet was destroyed.

MICHAEL PORTILLO
Although religion was at the heart of the uprising in the Vendee, it was actually sparked off by the government’s conscription of three hundred thousand men from all over the country to fight the wars on France’s borders. According to Alan Forrest the Vendeans weren’t alone in objecting, it was their insurgency that set them apart.

ALAN FORREST
Unlike other areas of peasant revolt this one developed very quickly into armed conflict in which essentially peasant armies, led by local notable figures, were in armed revolt against the soldiers of the government. They committed atrocities too, let’s be quite clear. They captured stragglers, they tortured, in some cases very horribly - there are stories of Republican soldiers being burned in vats of boiling water, for instance.

MICHAEL PORTILLO
En route to Cholet, Jean Clement wanted to show me the remains of the once proud Chateau de Durbelliere, the ancestral home of Henri Larochejacquelin, one of the leaders of Les Blancs, the counter revolutionary army.

As you drive north from Poitier the landscape changes. There’s an almost English roll to the countryside…

MUSIC IN

…and a lattice work of hedgerows, known locally as Brocage. In this terrain a limited counter revolutionary force was able to operate effectively against the first government troops pitted against it.

In Henri Larochejacquelin they found an inspirational leader.

As we pulled up in front of the ruins of the chateau, Jean Clement quoted the speech that he’s supposed to have made on taking over as leader of Les Blancs.

If I advance follow me, if I die avenge me, and if I retreat kill me.

JEAN CLEMENT MARTIN
Ten minutes, okay

MICHAEL PORTILLO
Yes, yes, I’ll get the bus.

MUSIC OUT

MICHAEL PORTILLO
We walked through what are now farm outbuildings, to the moated remains of the chateau itself.

MICHAEL PORTILLO
It obviously was built on a great scale, we’re standing by a tower which has been shorn off, but with a very substantial piece, we’re looking at some very elegant windows, there’s only the, the frames that are left now, there’s no woodwork or anything like that, and looking into the distance we can see further rounded towers. It’s obviously a very large estate, these were rich people.

JEAN CLEMENT MARTIN
Yeah, and Le Marquis de Larojacquelin was very influent in this region, in the beginning of 1793 his son Henri de Larojacquelin lived there, um was built on the head of a little peasant army on après the 1793.

MICHAEL PORTILLO
So the peasants and the aristocrats came together to make this army?

JEAN CLEMENT MARTIN
Yeah, and then on October 1793 Henri Larojacquelin became Generalisim.

MICHAEL PORTILLO
How old was he?

JEAN CLEMENT MARTIN
Twenty-one.

MICHAEL PORTILLO
And so with aristocrats at their head this peasant army fought against the Revolution, with some success?

JEAN CLEMENT MARTIN
Oui, with some success because they fight against very bad Revolutionary troops in front of them.

MUSIC IN

MICHAEL PORTILLO
The response from the Revolutionary government came in the form of General Turreau, and what became known as his Colonnes Infernale, the infernal columns of soldiers. As we’ve heard the idea was to establish safe areas, and from there to march out to devastate towns and villages known to have supported the uprising. On the nineteenth of January 1794, Turreau wrote to the Committee for Public Safety in Paris.

READING
Je le repete citoyens Representants, je regarde comme indispensable la mesure de bruler villes…

READING (Translation)
Citizen representatives, I repeat that I regard the burning of towns, villages and small holdings as an indispensable measure if we wish finally to bring an end to this terrible war in the Vendee. Without it I will not be able to annihilate this band of brigands who each day seem to increase in number.

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