Even for assiduous relic hunters, there are pathetically few material reminders today of the martyred sisters of Compiègne. However, the website of the French Carmelites offers a short "pilgrimage", which I have tried to follow (not in real life, just on Google Maps!). We start off with a "promenade in Compiègne"
Le Carmel de France, "Les Carmélites martyres de Compiègne - Faire le pélerinage"
https://www.carmel.asso.fr/Faire-un-pelerinage.html
On 7th August 1792 the National Assembly ordered the municipalities to verify the official inventory made two years previously. The verification, seizure and removal of the convent's entire furnishings was only actually carried out on 12th September. All items were seized and transported to the former St. Corneille Abbey, the general depot for Compiègne’s confiscated church goods... Madame Philippe mentions, in particular, the disappearance at this time of the large collection of fine, life-size wax figures composing the monastery’s celebrated “crèche.” Its numerous spectacular tableaux of richly dressed images were set up not only at Christmas, but also at other times by royal request. With an indignation rare for her, Madame Philippe opines that those magnificent wax figures had all been melted down to make the candles illumining the works of darkness fomented by revolutionary committees during their sinister nocturnal meetings. It was on September 14, with their housing assured and their civilian clothing acquired, that the community finally emerged from their stripped monastery... (William Bush, To Quell the Terror, p.91-92)
The contents of the Carmel were definitively sold off in November 1794, by which time the buildings had already been transformed into a military hospital.
The Church of Saint-Jacques (Saint-James)
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The Église Saint-Jacques, is the principal historic church of Compiègne, in the former "paroisse royale". It has a side chapel dedicated to the Blessed Martyrs. On the wall is a "Transverberation of Saint Teresa of Avila" painted by Marie Leszczyńska for the Carmel according to the instructions of the prioress Mother Teresa of the Resurrection (Descajeuls).
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Entry on the Base Palissy: https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/memoire/AP80L09927
The Carmelite refuges
After they were driven from their convent in September 1792, the nuns took up residence in the vicinity of the Church of Saint-Antoine. Since they were forbidden to live together, the community of twenty divided itself into four "associations", each lodged in separate apartments (though two had the same address). Since 1994 the three Carmelite "refuges" are indicated by commemorative plaques.
1. 9 rue Saint-Antoine, formerly rue Dampierre. The house of the Widow Saiget. Here lodged Mme Lidoine, the prioress, with the three senior choir sisters and Madame Philippe, plus a lay sister and an extern, who were also to be numbered among the martyrs.
2. 14 rue des Cordeliers. The house of the widow's brother M. de la Vallée. The subprioress Mme. Brideau, plus three others, took up residence here.
3. 32 rue du Président Sorel, formerly 24 rue des Boucheries. This house was rented from an innkeeper. Mother de Croissy, the novice mistress and former prioress, was responsible for the three nuns in her novitiate class and for the ailing Sister d'Hangest, who died six weeks after the nuns left the monastery. The remaining nuns were at first housed in separate apartment within the same building, but by the time of the arrest, after the departure of Madame Philippe and two other choir nuns, numbers had dwindled to sixteen and the two groups at the same address had merged into one. (Bush, To quell the Terror (1999) p.95-97.)
The Church of Saint-Antoine
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| The Église Saint-Antoine, viewed from the rue des Cordeliers |
If we imagine the community renewing their daily act of consecration following one of those early morning daily masses in Saint Antoine's in that autumn of 1792, an indelible impression emerges. In a country rent by radical revolution, this small community of 19 outcast nuns, stripped of their habits and clothed in unfashionable, second-hand civilian clothes, daily offered themselves to God in holocaust, body and soul, with such meticulous attention that scoffers would have found it all ridiculous. Their shoulders and bosoms covered by large, cast-off scarves, their heads enclosed by nondescript, cast-off bonnets, they pronounced their daily act of consecration in hushed but distinct and insistently articulated voices, totally indifferent to the scorn of the world. Like incense their voices rose toward heaven from their half-hidden side altar in St. Antoine's Church, gently pervading the semi-darkness of the early morning hour. Far from the eyes of a busy world and, indeed, almost invisible to it, these hidden souls, consumed by their love for Jesus Christ, were participating in a divine drama, the only drama that really matters for Christians. On a chilled, grey autumnal morning in the year 1792, while France was in the midst of its Revolution, these 19 French women, in the shadows of a provincial parish church, inextricably joined things of heaven to things of the earth. William Bush, To Quell the Terror (1999), p.109.
The former convent of the Visitation
The site where the Carmelites were imprisoned between 22nd June and 12th July 1794, in the rue Saint-Marie is now occupied by a Monoprix. There is an old inscribed stone embedded in the adjacent wall, presumably from the former convent.
The carts which carried the nuns towards Paris would have made their way out of the town along the rue de Paris and the route de Senlis.
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- A tunic from England, together with half a sandal.
- A pastel by Mme Lidoine of the crucified Christ.
- A pastel of Our Lady of Sorrows, by Mme de Croissy or Mme Lidoine.
- A statue given by the Daughters of France to Mother Catherine de Miséricorde.
- A painting of the death of Saint Teresa.
- Two scraps of a scapular which belonged to ?St Teresa
- A rosary with wooden beads which belonged to one of the martyrs.
- The statuette of the Virgin kissed by the martyrs.
- A pastel showing Sister Charlotte of the Resurrection, which belonged to the comte d'Elbée.
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| Statuette in the crypt of the Carmelites (from Google Maps, Shadow Tours) |
The Benedictines fully expected to share the same fate as the Carmelites, but instead in 1795 they were released, reaching Dover on May 3rd, still dressed in their borrowed clothes. With the assistance of the English Congregation, they settled at Woolton in Lancashire and, in 1807, at Salford Hall, near Evesham, in Warwickshire. In 1838 they were able to purchase Stanbrook Hall at Callow End, near Malvern in Worcestershire. The Abbey church, designed by Pugin no less, was consecrated in 1871. After more than a century, in 2009, the shrinking community was obliged to move from their splendid Victorian premises to their present more modest, but architecturally sympathetic, surroundings in Weiss, North Yorkshire.
News of the Carmelites' martyrdom naturally transformed borrowed rags into prized treasures. Today the community preserves the remnants in a reliquary at its new Stanbrook Abbey. In 1894, for the centenary, some items were returned to Compiègne. Over the years the awarding of pious gifts has reduced the remainder to just five "secondary relics", consisting of some scraps of cloth and one sandal.
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| The nuns of Stanbrook in 2020 |
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| The reliquary at Stanbrook - image posted on Facebook |
The principal account of the Benedictines' traumatic adventure can be found in a manuscript by Dame Ann-Teresa Partington, the cellarer of the community:
About the middle of June, 1794, sixteen Carmelite Nuns were brought to the prison, and lodged in a room which faced that which was occupied by us. They were very strictly guarded. They had not been long there before they were, without any previous notice, hurried off to Paris, for no other crime than that an emigrant priest, who had been their confessor, had written to one of them. ...
The Carmelite Nuns quitted the Compiegne prison in the most saint-like manner. We saw them embrace each other before they set off, and they took an affectionate leave of us by the motion of their hands, and by their friendly gestures. On their way to the scaffold and upon the scaffold itself (as we were told by an eye-witness of credit, Monsieur Douai) they showed a firmness and a cheerful composure which nothing but a spotless conscience and a joyful hope can inspire. It was reported that they sung or said aloud the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, until the fatal axe interrupted the voice of the last of them. They suffered on the 16th of July, 1794, the feast of their Patroness, B. Mariae de Monte Carmelo. One of this, holy community happened to be absent when the rest were taken to Paris. She concealed herself in different places till the death of the Tyrant Robespierre, which happened on the 28th of July, 1794. When this monster was removed, she returned to her friends in Compiegne, and frequently visited us in prison. She gave us the names and the ages of her sisters who were put to death. They are as follows :......
Two or three days after the Carmelites were taken to Paris, the Mayor and two Members of the District of Compiegne called upon us in the prison. We were still in our religious dress, which he had frequently wished us to 'change; but we always alleged that we really had not money sufficient to furnish ourselves with any other clothes than the ragged habits we then wore. The same day he returned to us again, called two of the nuns aside and told them that they must put off that uniform, as he called it; that he durst no longer permit them to wear that prohibited dress; that should the people grow riotous, we should be more easily concealed in any other dress than in the religious one. The truth was, he expected, like the Carmelites, we should soon be conducted to Paris for execution, and he was afraid he might be put to trouble if we were found in the religious garb. Being again assured that we had not money to purchase other clothes, he went himself to the room which the good Carmelites had inhabited while in prison, and brought some of the poor clothes they had left behind them there. These he gave to us, telling us to put them on as soon as possible. We were in great want of shoes. The Mayor civilly said he would get us what we wanted, but one of the jailors bluntly told the Procuratrix we should not want shoes long. On leaving the room the Mayor turned to Mr. Higginson and said : Take care of your companions — as much as to tell him, prepare them for death, for he had nothing else in his power, as the Mayor well knew.
https://www.stanbrookabbey.org.uk/
The Tablet - "Word from the Cloisters", 16.01.2025.
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/diary/word-from-the-cloisters-13/
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| A party from Compiegne, including the prioress and archivist from the Carmel at Jonquières, visit Picpus in 2024. Still from the film Les Bienheureuses. |
The true story behind Dialogues des Carmélites: The execution of the nuns of Compiègne
‘Today, 40 individuals had their heads cut off, including 16 Carmelite nuns from Compiègne.’ This fragment, dated 17 July 1794, from the diary of 69-year-old Célestin Guittard de Floriban (who took a particular interest in the public guillotinings) serves to remind us that Dialogues des Carmélites had at its centre a real event.
Initially, the French Revolution of 1789 was not intrinsically opposed to religion; but it was, from the start, unrelentingly harsh towards contemplative religious orders like the Carmelites. Writers in the Enlightenment had regarded such figures with something like contempt. ‘They eat, they pray, they digest’, was Voltaire’s summary. The wealth of their communities seemed a reproach when set against apostolic poverty. Indeed, religious houses formed a system of outdoor relief for supernumerary children of the upper classes.
In these anti-clerical polemics, nuns were invariably held to be victims. It was widely believed that most had been forced to take lifetime vows as minors and under pressure from their families. The nun’s veil was thus an iconic symbol of oppression. Where they were not (in a surprisingly widespread fantasy) believed to be degraded brothels where sisters held orgies with confessors and fellow nuns, convents were viewed as mini-Bastilles where defenceless girls were pitilessly incarcerated and abused mentally and physically.
In 1792–3, the French monarchy was overthrown, a republic founded and France drifted into war against most of Europe. The National Assembly reacted to the threat of state failure by adopting a policy of Terror. A deep abyss opened up beneath those who resisted the call of Revolutionary patriotism. The Carmelites of Compiègne were of this number.
In 1792, the Carmelite convent was taken over by Compiègne’s municipality and the sisters were dispersed around private homes in the town. In June 1794, Compiègne’s Revolutionary Surveillance Committee concluded that the sisters were holding ‘gatherings and conventicles’ with counter-Revolutionary intent.
Packed off to Paris to face trial, the sisters arrived in the city at 11pm on 13 July 1794 and were consigned to the gloomy Conciergerie prison on the Ile de la Cité. Four days later they were charged by the Revolutionary Tribunal. Founded in spring 1793 to try counter-Revolutionary offences, the court’s activities had by mid-1794 speeded up and become increasingly perfunctory. The Carmelite affair proved to be a ‘batch trial’: the sisters shared the dock with a sundry crowd that ranged from noblemen through to a cobbler and a hairdresser. Conviction was a formality.
To prepare prisoners for the scaffold, their headgear was removed in the Conciergerie prison, the clothing at the back of their necks ripped open and their hair cut so as to bare the nape of their necks in preparation for the guillotine. After a cup of chocolate each (procured by their Superior who bartered her fur stole with other prisoners), the 16 sisters were crammed into two of the five tumbrils which set out from the Ile de la Cité after 6pm. It took well over an hour to reach the open space on the south-eastern edge of the city (now Place de la Nation) where the guillotine was at this time erected.
From the gates of the Conciergerie to the guillotine itself, the nuns sang religious canticles. At around 8pm, the public executioner allowed them to conduct final prayers at the foot of the scaffold, and their Superior was granted her wish to die last. Throughout the execution of the 16 women, which would have lasted half an hour or more, the sisters went sequentially to their deaths singing the 'Laudate Dominum', a hymn particularly associated with their founder, Teresa of Ávila. Eventually, only the voice of the Superior was to be heard. And then the singing stopped, and there was silence.
ROH website, post of 16.05.2014.
References
Le Carmel de France, "Les Carmélites martyres de Compiègne - Faire le pélerinage"
https://www.carmel.asso.fr/Faire-un-pelerinage.html
Jennifer Alberts,"Ils étaient décidés à les exécuter" : les carmélites de Compiègne.." Franceinfo TV: [3.Hauts-de-France, Oise] post 15.12.2024
https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/oise/ils-etaient-decides-a-les-executer-les-carmelites-de-compiegne-guillotinees-sous-la-terreur-dont-le-martyre-a-inspire-l-opera-le-plus-joue-au-monde-3073276.html
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