Histoire et polémique, le massacre de Machecoul

Résumé En

Jean-Clément Martin, History and Polemics : the Machecoul Massacres. The Machecoul Massacres, that is, in March and April 1793, the execution or lynching of at least one hundred and fifty people considered as "blues" by the peasants, who had taken over this small town of the Loire Atlantique department, forms, in the Republicans' memory, the counterpart of the Lues Massacre engraved in the counterrevolutionary memory. This careful study describes the economic, social, political and cultural conditions of this small region during the first years of the Revolution. It confirms the classic studies on the causes of "the Vendée", except that the situation was probably even worse in Machecoul and the surrounding parishes because of the close geographical intermixing of "patriots" and "non-patriots". They were literally neighbours. If the sociology of the victims holds few surprises (civil officiers, members of the local petite and moyenne bourgeoisie, Constitutional priests), that of the persecutors isn't very different. The activists were also merchants and local worthies; they had been opposing the new order of things since 1789 and in an atmosphere of religious division, they had galvanized rural discontent at the time of the drawing of lots. Henceforth the Republican legend pointed to the Machecoul butchers as the very epitome of savage peasantry.