In France, this week began with celebration; for July 14 was "Bastille Day." The day commemorates the beginning of the French Revolution and the beginning of the end for the French monarchy and the ascendancy of the constitutional republic. The Bastille, a fortress in Paris, was the symbol to the Parisians of absolute, royal power. In it political opponents to the government had been imprisoned and it was a cache for the arms and ammunition which protected the royal power. A generation before, King Louis XV had sensed that his country was ripe for revolution. Amid the decadency, corruption, and oppression, he shrugged and predicted, Apres moi le deluge -- "After me, the flood." The storm broke violently when an armed mob stormed and seized the Bastille on July 14, 1789.
The storm increased in intensity during the following ten years, becoming more violent and indiscriminate, climaxing with "The Reign of Terror." The Church was an object of this violence since she was viewed as an ally of the monarchy and an enemy of Reason -- an idea developed in the secular humanism of the Enlightenment. Many religious were made martyrs during the upheaval, and, ironically, one group's death is remembered by the Church three days after Bastille Day. The Blessed Martyrs of Compiegne were 16 women from the Carmel of Compiegne, guillotined during the revolution. The following is their story, taken from CTP's Light to the Nations II: The Making of the Modern World.
The Martyrs of Compiègne
and the Fall of Robespierre
An excerpt
from Light to the Nations II: The Making of the Modern World, pp.
165-167
By
Christopher Zehnder
The Terror
now entered its darkest phase. Prisons in Paris began to overflow with
thousands of accused persons. Executions increased. In the year from the
beginning of the Reign of Terror to the passage of the Law of the 22nd
Prairial, Paris had seen 1,256 executions; but in the six weeks following
the passage of the law, 1,361 died under the guillotine. A steady stream of
victims, men as well as women, patriots as well as traitors, climbed the
scaffold. Among them was André Chenier, the poet who had composed the hymn to Robespierre’s god.
Among those who met their deaths during this period were the
Carmelite nuns of Compiègne. Since September 1792, when the National Assembly
had forced them to leave their monastery and abandon their habits, they had
continued to live their religious life in small groups, near to a chapel where
they heard Mass. But in June 1794, they were arrested for plotting against the
republic and taken to Paris. During their trial before the Revolutionary
Tribunal, the prosecuting attorney accused the nuns of being fanatics on
account of their “attachment to childish beliefs” and “silly religious practices.”
Without an attorney to defend them, the sisters were condemned as “enemies of
the people by conspiring against its sovereign will.” They were 16 in number—ten
professed nuns, one novice, three lay sisters, and two servants.
Read the rest here.
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