46°59′38.04″N 1°49′18.12″W / 46.9939000°N 1.8217000°W
First Massacre of Machecoul | |||||||
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Part of the War in the Vendée | |||||||
![]() 19th century representation of the massacre | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Louis-Charles-César Maupassant † Pierre-Claude Ferré † | René Souchu[Note 1] | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
100 National Guardsmen 10 Gendarmes | 4000–6000 men and women | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
about 200 killed | 4 killed |
The Machecoul massacre is one of the first events of the War in the Vendée, a revolt against mass conscription and the civil constitution of the clergy. The first massacre took place on 11 March 1793, in the provincial city of Machecoul, in the district of the lower Loire. The city was a thriving center of grain trade; most of the victims were administrators, merchants and citizens of the city.
Although the Machecoul massacre, and others that followed it, are often viewed (variously) as a royalist revolt, or a counter-revolution, twenty-first century historians generally agree that Vendée revolt was a complicated popular event brought on by anti-clericalism of the Revolution, mass conscription, and Jacobin anti-federalism. In the geographic area south of the Loire, resistance to recruitment was particularly intense, and much of this area also resented intrusion by partisans of the republic, called "blue coats", who brought with them new ideas about district and judicial organization, and who required reorganization of parishes with the so-called juring priests (those who had taken the civil oath). Consequently, the insurgency became a combination of many impulses, at which conscription and the organization of parishes led the list. The response to it was incredibly violent on both sides.
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