In reality, as usual, almost nothing is known for certain about the young man or the circumstances of his death.
The context - defeat at Fréligné
The occasion of Mermet's heroic demise was the successful attack by Charette on the Republican fortified camp at Fréligné, 20 kilometres east of Challans, on 15th September 1794. Like most actions in the Vendée, the incident was not much reported at the time. A reconstruction of events, based on modern scholarship, can be found in the relevant Wikipedia.fr article.
The camp, constructed in June and July 1793, stood on open ground and was square in form, protected by ditches which were eight feet wide. with earth piled up to form parapets. According to the historian Lionel Dumarcet, the garrison consisted of between 700 and 900 men drawn from the 39th and 59th Regiments-of-the-line, plus a battalion of volunteers from Orleans and 60 cavalry. These forces were under the command of chef-de-brigade Prat, seconded by Albert Mermet, Lieutenant-Colonel in the 39th.
Royalist troops involved in the action are estimated at about 3,000.
On the morning of the 15th Charette's men advanced towards the camp under cover of the morning mist. The Republicans on guard raised the alarm, then retreated. The Vendean cavalry penetrated the fortifications, creating disorder before they were finally pushed back. The infantry then began an assault. The fusillade lasted perhaps an hour; the combatants advanced to within 40 paces of each other, but the Republicans were protected by their parapets and the left flank of the Vendeans was forced to retreat.
According to some accounts the camp was fortified on three sides only and Charette was able to switch his attention to the weaker defences so as to make a decisive attack. In Lionel Dumarcet's view the Republican defeat was due chiefly to lack of munitions. Prat, who was wounded, ordered the retreat. He was one of the last to leave the camp, but was killed by a ball as he mounted his horse. Some fugitives escaped to the Republican posts at Machecoul and Saint-Christophe-du-Ligneron but no reinforcements were forthcoming. Charette set fire to the camp then returned to Belleville-sur-Vie. Dumarcet puts the total Republican losses at 500. The dead included Prat himself, Mermet and his young son, and several other officers. The company of grenadiers of the 39th Regiment had only eight survivors. A number of women were also found among the bodies. Vendean losses are estimated at about 350.
The making of a juvenile hero
The fate of the young Mermet seems to have been widely publicised for the first time in 1807, when it was the subject of a widely distributed popular print in the patriotic collection Fastes de la nation française et des puissances alliées.
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| Death of Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Mermet and his son Jean-Baptiste, 15 September 1794 at Fréligny. Engraved by Louis-François Couché from a drawing by Louis Lafitte, Fastes de la nation française et des puissances alliées, 1807. Musée Carnavalet. |
The text which accompanied the engraving gave a (highly fanciful) summary of the elder Mermet's career, and described his heroic death on the field of battle. His devoted son, rushed to avenge him, received a mortal blow and "fell down dead onto the body of his valiant father" .
Other Republican sources embroidered similar narratives: the young Mermet was likened to Bara, hacked to pieces by merciless "brigands": sometimes his youth was exaggerated and his age given as "scarcely fourteen" (See Readings).
In 1808 a much fuller account of the attack at Fréligné appeared as an entry in the Nouveau dictionnaire historique des sièges et batailles mémorables. This was to remain an important source of reference for later writers. In this version of events, the distraught young Mermet allows himself to be taken behind the lines with his father's body, only to meet his death when the camp is subsequently torched.
In some sources a Royalist veteran, the Chevalier de la Jaille, is depicted pleading in vain with the boy who refuses to leave for safety because he will not abandon his dead father. Both sides are said to have recognised and admired his filial devotion. It is tempting to see this addition as a piece of Vendean apologetics, but it may in fact originate with a work of fiction, Alexis Monteil's Les Étapes d'un volontaire of 1842, which contains an extensive pseudo-historical narrative of events at Fréligné. La Jaille was a historical personage, but a shadowy one. He was present during the attack and may indeed have lead the final assault on the camp. He was to be killed in February 1796 at Froidfond, in a combat which saw the death of many of Charette's most loyal officers.
Realities?
The Adjutant-General Aubertin, in his memoirs published in 1824, presents an alternative view of the attack. According to the reports he had received, one from an eyewitness, the garrison had been surprised by Charette in a state of unreadiness and been completely overrun. Most of the officers had been killed and the men had fled without resistance. Aubertin, who had himself set up the camp, knew both Prat and Mermet personally. He observes that Mermet's career had been fantastically embellished in subsequent accounts: in reality he was a middle-aged man, who, before the Revolution, had served for thirty years as his regiment's Master-Tailor. He was unlikely to have engaged in heroics of any sort.
Aubertin's information on Mermet's career is substantiated by the available genealogical evidence. Born at Saint-Rambert-en-Bugey, near Lyon, on 20th April 1739, Mermet would have been 55 at the time of the death. He is recorded as having entered the army as a simple soldier in 1758, in the Regiment of the Isle-de-France, later the 39th Demi-brigade of the Line. He was indeed a military maître-tailleur. In 1772, at the time of his eldest son's birth, he is listed as a sergeant in the garrison at Le Quesnoy (Nord). His second son was born in Belfort, Franche-Comté, in 1775. Mermet was presumably deployed to the Vendée with his regiment in the course of 1793.
Mermet's two elder sons, Julien Augustin Joseph Mermet, Vicomte Mermet (1772-1837) and Joseph-Antoine Mermet (1775-1820) were both to become highly decorated senior cavalry officers of the Empire. The name of the first appears on the Arc de Triomphe.
As to his youngest son, Jean-Baptiste, we do even have the most basic facts: his exact age or his formal status. Perhaps he was an enfant de troupe as his two elder brothers had been; it is highly unlikely he was the regimental standard bearer; Aubertin tells us plausibly that he was a "fourrier du regiment", a post involved with the administration of provisions and supplies. As to his death, we do not really know whether he was killed outright by the enemy or perished later in the flames; despite the posthumous myths, he was just one more sad victim of war.
Reference
"Bataille de Fréligné", Wikipédia
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_de_Fr%C3%A9lign%C3%A9
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_de_Fr%C3%A9lign%C3%A9
SEHRI website: "39e régiment d’infanterie Isle de France"
https://revolutionsehri.wordpress.com/39e-regiment-dinfanterie-isle-de-france/
https://revolutionsehri.wordpress.com/39e-regiment-dinfanterie-isle-de-france/
"39e régiment d'infanterie", Wikipédia
General Julien Augustin Joseph Mermet (Vicomte Mermet) on FrenchEmpire.net
Readings
The death of Mermet and his son - some Republican accounts
In the Fréligné affair, 29 Fructidor Year II, Army of the West, [Lieutenant-Colonel Mermet] commanded the 1st Battalion of his regiment. His division was subject to a surprised attack in its Camp; the enemy was superior in number and had the advantage...
This brave officer saw the danger that threatened the division if the enemy had time to consolidate its position; consulting only his audacity, he led his battalion into the midst of the enemy troops, inflicted a terrible carnage and forcing them to retreat in disorder. He was at the point of celebrating a complete and well-earned victory when he was killed, a victim of his devotion to his brothers-in-arms and to his country; he died in the face of the enemy after thirty-six years of service under the colours of the Regiments of the Isle-de-France...
Jean-Baptiste Mermet, aged sixteen, his son and standard-bearer, saw him fall and ran up to help or avenge him; he received a mortal blow and fell down dead onto the body of his valiant father.
Text which accompanies the engraving of 1807
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| Late 19c exercise book cover by Georges Dascher |
Antoine Henri, baron de Jomini, Histoire des guerres de la Révolution: campagnes de 1794-96 (1840), p.172.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QXcuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q&f=false
Despite their small numbers, the Republicans kept the rebels at bay for five hours. Prat was killed. Mermet continued to encourage his soldiers to resist. He had with him his son, aged sixteen, who held high and firm the colour of the brigade. But finally Mermet fell victim to enemy gun fire. The Vendeans took advantage of the disarray caused by this catastrophe to break through the Republican lines, which prepared to resist to the death. Jean-Baptiste Mermet remained standing; he held the tricolour flag close to his heart with one hand, and with the other defended himself against a hoard of determined enemies. Riddled with wounds, he finally fell onto the body of his father. "Long live the Republic!" was his final cry.
La Revue Occidentale, 1st January 1888, p.383.
La Revue Occidentale, 1st January 1888, p.383.
Description of the Battle from the Nouveau dictionnaire historique (1808)
FRELIGNÉ (battle of). Charette had been warned by the papers found at La Rouillère, that the Republicans planned to create multiple camps in order to disarm and starve the Vendée. He planned a surprise attack for 15th September on the camp at Fréligné. The encampment was square, surrounded by ditches and palisades. It was defended by two thousand troops-of-the-line commanded by the chefs-de-brigade Prat and Mermet (commander of the 2nd division of his regiment). Charette made a threefold attack. Neither side deployed cannon; they fought with muskets and bayonets. The Royalists at first suffered heavy losses...
To encourage his men Charette showed himself to them on the most exposed ground. Prat was killed. Mermet seized a guidon and tried to incite his men to leave the defences and charge the enemy. At the sight of so many adversaries, they hesitated. Charette and Mermet caught sight of each other and signalled to one another. The two armies were both focused on their chiefs; that one or other of them would be shot seemed inevitable. Charette would certainly have been killed if Lemoëlle, his second in command, had not carried him to the rear. Mermet, in pursuit of Charette, rushed out of the camp for a second time. A Vendean, who had slid forward on his stomach, shot him at twenty paces. He fell dead at the feet of his fourteen year old son, who was fighting at his side. This child threw himself on his father's body, and refused to abandon him. The soldiers transported them both back inside the camp. Beside Mermet also fell the flag bearer of the 39th, and the sergeant-major who then picked up the standard. Without chiefs, without colours, the Republicans nonetheless continued their stubborn defence. But when the voice of Charette rang out in encouragement, the Royalists found the Republican fortifications no obstacle... their army invaded the camp and massacred without discrimination everyone inside. Those who escaped fled towards Saint-Christophe-du-Ligneron, only to fall victim to an ambush and be killed as well. All the arms, munitions, and supplies were left to Charette who abandoned everything to his soldiers. Having pillaged the camp, they set fire to it. The young Mermet, still with the body of his father, perished in the flames, a touching example of filial piety which was admired by both sides. This victory was sullied by the murder of several women in the Republican camp and cost the lives of many brave men. Four hundred perished on the Royalist side, with twice as many wounded. Few Republicans escaped. The entreaties of the prisoners could not move the cruel victors who bathed themselves in blood.
Nouveau dictionnaire historique des sièges et batailles mémorables, par F. M.M, Vol. 3 (1808), p.43
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LJMBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA43#v=onepage&q&f=false
The text cited by General Aubertin, in the slightly later Victoires, conquêtes, desastres et guerres civiles des français, is very similar in content:
(Vol 3 (1817) , p. 158-59. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_kF6nEz0Y2u4C/page/n207/mode/2up)
The text cited by General Aubertin, in the slightly later Victoires, conquêtes, desastres et guerres civiles des français, is very similar in content:
(Vol 3 (1817) , p. 158-59. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_kF6nEz0Y2u4C/page/n207/mode/2up)
From Monteil's Les Étapes d'un Volontaire (1852)
... Mermet, with a chivalrous disregard for danger, that could only be excused by our critical position, marched twenty paces ahead of us.
There then unfolded one of those heroic scenes which happened so often in the wars of the Vendée and which await their modern Homer...
The brigands were surprised and intimidated by our unexpected sortie and had retreated before us, when Charette emerged from among the ranks and confronted our brave colonel, sword in hand. Mermet immediately planted the tricolour flag he was carrying in the ground, and hurried towards the redoubtable Vendean. Both our column and the Royalist troops halted indecisively, struck with respect. Charette smiled.
But this antique style of single combat, so alien to modern war, was not to take place. Our men, seeing the danger our chief was running and recognising the formidable Vendean general, trained their guns towards him. The Royalists, for their part, saw Mermet's desperation and levelled their carabines. It is superfluous to say that this scene took place in less time than it takes to relate it.
It was a thousand to one that both Mermet and Charette would pay for their daring with their lives; but the wager went against us. A Vendean of colossal height, with the strength of Hercules - Lemoelle, commander of the chasseurs du Bocage, as we later learned - gathered his general in his arms at the moment we fired and carried him back behind the lines in a hail of bullets. Mermet, without a similar lieutenant to come to his aid, fell on his face dead.
The fall of our heroic colonel caused us a indescribable emotion and crushed our ardour. We dare not continue the sortie and withdrew behind our defences. The shame of retrea was redeemed by the noble conduct of an officer of the 39th of the Line, who stood his ground, sabre in hand, at the foot of the tricolour flag that Mermet had planted and swore to defend the colours to the death.
Five minutes later this heroic officer too was killed. . At that moment one of his comrades left the ranks, grabbed the flag from the ground and turned to wave it defiantly at the Vendeans. A ball hit him almost immediately; he staggered and fell inert on the body of his dead brother-in-in arms.
Despite my desire to leave behind this scene of blood, I cannot pass in silence the touching and sublime suffering of the son of Mermet, a child of fourteen. Having fought alongside his father like a little lion, he clung to his body, covered it in kisses and tears, and refused to return to the camp.
With our leaders dead, our colours taken and the morale of our troops dashed by so many rapid reverses, it was inevitable that we would succumb. Succumb we did. The first Royalist to throw himself over our palisades and penetrated the fortifications, sword in hand, was an old chevalier of Saint-Louis, with a head of white hair and a deep sonorous voice. Vive le Roi! My friends! he cried to the Vendeans, as he fell on us; Forward!
[At this point the narrator is knocked senseless; he comes round on the battlefield some time later and is able to hide himself.]
The next morning I saw in all its horror a field of battle after the combat. It was frightful. I witnessed another dreadful sight: the Vendeans stripped the dead of their clothes and weapons, then mercilessly finished off our wounded. I will never forget a single one of their cries, their sufferings...
After the pillage, the Vendeans, as they had at La Rouillère, moved on to set fire to the camp. Everything that could not be carried off was burnt. Here we come to the most heart breaking episode that it is possible to imagine.
That same elderly chevalier de Saint-Louis, who had been the first to enter our defences, gun in hand, was directing preparations for setting the fire from close to my hiding place. Hardly thirty paces separated us and I could hear everything that he said.
- Before you set fire to that range of huts, he said to a peasant, make sure you bring out the child who is crying for his father, whom I entrusted to your care.
- That would be fine with me, replied the peasant, if the petit bleu would allow it; but as soon as anyone goes near him, he threatens them with his bayonet! I tell you, M. le chevalier de la Jaille; if you hadn't given such stern orders, he would have been shot long ago!
- Poor child, replied the old chevalier; he doesn't want to be separated from his father's body; it doesn't seem fair that he should become the victim of his filial devotion.... I will go and see him myself.
Although my own position was dangerous... I could not prevent myself from thinking of the son of our brave colonel Mermet, and lifting my head a little above the sides of the ditch!
Alas! My fears were all too well founded. I saw young Mermet, with a gun in his hand, threatening the old chevalier when he tried to drag him away...
- You have killed my father, you miserable brigands; and now you dare to offer me my life! he said in a broken voice, his eyes bright with fever. Stop right there; cowards! thieves! murderers!
I must give the Vendean peasants their due. They were moved by the youth of our colonel's brave son; they ignored his insults and made no attempt to disarm him. However, there came a moment when the unfortunate Mermet cried: Down with the King! Down with the calottins! Long Live the Republic! I saw the peasants lose their patience; their expressions became menacing and one of them turned towards the chevalier de la Jaille, priming his gun.
- Monsieur, he said, if you are a good royalist, you cannot order us to respect those who respect neither religion nor the King!
I had no doubt that M. de la Jaille was beginning to fear for the unfortunate boy. He replied gently to the peasant:
- My friend, to spill the blood of a child, is to condemn yourself to a old age of regrets. If he will not yield to our prayers and entreaties, so be it! Let us leave him to himself. God will do with him what He will!...
- You have killed my father, said the boy, and I no longer wish to live.
- I warn you, my friend, said M. de la Jaille as he left we are about to set fire to this part of the camp. But you still have time to save yourself if you leave quickly.
M. de la Jaille could not prevent himself from turning his head several times to signal to young Mermet to come and join him. The boy merely shrugged his shoulders in scorn. What a horrible memory! Soon a thick smoke, from which rose a dozen flames, hid the unfortunate son of our dead colonel from my eyes!
Poor child! How many times since then has your image has appeared in my dreams. How many times has the memory of that awful death tainted my pleasures!
Amans-Alexis Monteil, Les Étapes d'un Volontaire de l'an II. de la République, Volume 3 (1852), p.431-33.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=w7wCrSQWYfIC&pg=PA431#v=onepage&q&f=false
Monteil's work was originally serialised in the Bonapartist journal La Patrie in August 1851-March 1852. Another edition was published under the name of Paul Duplessis, who edited the text for publication.
Entry for Mermet in the Biographie moderne (1816)
MERMET (Albert). Republican général-de-brigade, born at Saint-Rambert, near Lyon.
He entered the service in 1758 and progressed from the rank of simple soldier in the Regiment of the Ile de France to the grade of Lieutenant-Colonel, which he was granted, together with the Cross of Saint-Louis, for his good conduct and services before the French Revolution during thirteen campaigns, in Westphalia, Portugal and Corsica. During the Revolution he advanced rapidly. Having become général-de-brigade, he was employed in the Vendée, where he distinguished himself on different occasions. He was killed on 29 Fructidor, Year II, at Fréligné, after performing prodigious acts of valour.
Biographie moderne (1816) vol. 2.
The source of this information, which drew scorn from General Aubertin, is the text which accompanies the 1807 engraving. This version is even more fanciful: it refers not only to campaigns in Westphalia, Portugal and Corsica, but also to an act of valour by Mermet at the Seige of Toulon where he swam ashore with his men from Admiral Trogoff's ship, the Patriote, about to be handed over to the English. It is true that part of the 39th Regiment was transferred to the Artillery of the Marine in 1790, but this is surely a case of mistaken identity
From the Memoirs of Adjutant-General Aubertin, 1824
Before he left the Army of the West, [Aubertin] wrote to the chief of brigade Prat who succeeded him in command of the camp at Freligné... Aubertin had an interest in this officer, with whom he had served for twenty-five years in the Regiment of Beauce. Prat had courage, but he was too trusting and lacked firmness of character. He depended heavily on his subordinates... After the Adjutant-Major of his regiment (39th Infantry), the man he depended on most was his Lieutenant-Colonel, Mermet. This officer, who was already old, had been the Master Tailor of the Regiment of Beauce for thirty years. He had only reached his current rank through length of service. He lacked the knowledge necessary for his new position....
Aubertin had scarcely arrived at his new post, when he was informed that the camp at Freligné had been overrun by six or seven hundred Vendeans, that it had been entirely destroyed and the force that defended it torn to pieces....
On 14th September, a considerable body of Vendeans had appeared before the camp and made a surprise attack. The defending troops were caught off guard due to the culpable negligence of the officers in whom Prat had placed his reliance. He was wearing his slippers when he came out to see what was happening! The rout was complete; the soldiers fled in all directions without even forming up. Prat was killed, as was Mermet and his youngest son, and a large number of other officers. There were no individual acts of resistance, indeed no action at all properly speaking - contrary to what one might suppose from the accounts of certain writers. Captain Bédos and Larue, the chief of the 11th Battalion of Orléans - who had been present but escaped thanks to a good horse - furnished the details to the author of these Memoirs and their testimony is not to be doubted. It has suited Royalist writers...to make a grand story of the action and to attribute to the Republicans a stubborn resistance that, sadly, they did not show.
NOTE:
The way in which the death of Mermet (and the affair in general) is reported in Volume II of the Victoires et Conquetes etc. (pages 158 and 159) is ridiculous and not at all true to life. It might be amusing, if the circumstances were not so sad, to see an old man, without physical or moral strength, like the former-tailor Mermet, metamorphosised into an Achilles. He hurries with all the speed of a "fleet-footed hero" out of the camp, to wrest from the midst of his troops the Royalist chief, a young and vigorous man, and hardly one to let himself be taken like a child. Charette did not need the valour of a Lemoelle to rescue him from the hands of a battle crazed Mermet. His life and liberty were not in danger for a moment. The author of these Memoirs knew Lieutenant-Colonel Mermet personally and can attest that the portrait given in this work no way resembles him. However, it can be sai that this unfortunate old man died bravely on the field of battle; and that his younger son, a fourrier in the 39th Regiment, throwing himself on the quivering body of his father, equally found an honourable death.
This note was written and the Memoirs finished when a copy of [the Bibliographie moderne article cited above] fell into the hands of the author....
What could be the source used by the author of this biography ? We do not know, but it is certain that the details that you have just read in these Memoirs are the most exact truth and that there is no need to choose between different versions.
Adjutant-General Dominique Aubertin, Mémoires sur la guerre de la Vendée, en 1793 et 1794 (1824)
p.155-161
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