The Martyrs of Compiègne - towards a new hagiography

The documentary Les Bienheureuses, on the Martyrs of Compiègne, was created in 2023 by journalist and independent filmmaker François Lespes.  The film was originally broadcast on the French language Catholic television channel KTO TV and, in July 2024, was reissued on the KTO TV website, as well as on YouTube. Although the project started life as an independent initiative - indeed a labour of love - it been widely endorsed in Catholic media in the run up to the canonisation of  December 2024.  It is an impressive accomplishment, especially for its insights into the lives of the modern nuns.  It also, in a certain sense, represents the current state of Catholic attitudes towards the Revolution and its legacy of violence.

Here is an English summary, concentrating on the historical analysis, with a few comments and notes, mainly based on the additional information taken from William Bush's To Quell the Terror: the true story of the Carmelite Martyrs (1999).

Origins of the project: 

Interviewed on CNews in September last year, François Lespes explained the origin of his interest in the maryrs:

My interest in the history of the Carmelite martyrs was rekindled in the 1980s when I saw what I consider to be the best adaptation of the text of Bernanos, the TV film made by Pierre Cardinal for Antenne 2, with Bernanos's granddaughter Anne Caudry in the role of Blanche de la Force.  And my wife, two years ago, made me read a magnificent article by Anne Bernet.  I was seized by  desire to tell the story.  The documentary was made with limited means....  KTO again placed their confidence in me. 

I called the film by the title "Les Bienheureuses", which is now, from a certain perspective,  out of date. One of my purposes  was to try to capture the moment when the cause was reanimated, and to show all the people involved, the little hands that tried to advance the cause with passion.  All these people called them "Les Bienheureuses" - the "Blessed". The title recalls the Beatitude "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: Bear it with joy" .  All those who saw them testified to the joy with which the Carmelites went to the scaffold.

List of Contributors:

• François Lespes, creator of the film.
• Yves Bernanos, producer, grand-son of  Georges Bernanos.
• Sister Marie-Pierre, archivist of the Carmel de Compiègne at Jonquières.
• Marie Martin, author of  Les Carmélites de Compiegne s'offrir pour la paix (Téqui) April 2023
• Patrice Gueniffey, historian, director of studies at the L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, biographer of Napoleon and author of  La Politique de la Terreur (2003)
• Jean-Christian Petitfils, historian and writer
• Abbé Xavier Snoëk, parish priest for Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, Paris, and postulator for the cause of Madame Élisabeth
•  Olivier Malcurat, author of   Les Carmélites de Compiègne, martyres de la Révolution (PLEIN VENT, 2023.

Illustrated with specially-commissioned water-colours by Ixène and with pages from the bande-dessiné by Oliver Malcurat. 

[1:20] The cultural legacy

The film begins by exploring the cultural impact of the martyrdom.  François Lespes himself provides the initial voice-over for a clip of the execution scene from the 1984 film, which was his initial source of inspiration.  We then follow a production of Poulenc's opera in the church of Saint-Louis-en-l’Île in Paris by Carole Chabry of Opérapproche. 

[4: 30] Yves Bernados explains the background to his grandfather's work. 

[9:00]   "Although he put his whole soul into the work, Bernanos based himself on the text of Gertrud von Lefort who took liberties with the reality.  To discover the true historical record we must go back to the the MS of Sister-Marie of the Incarnation, and other historical sources."

[9:45] The history of the Carmel of Compiègne

We see very briefly some exhibits from the museum of the modern Carmelite house in Jonquières and are introduced to the community's archivist, the impressive Sister Marie-Pierre.

.

The Mission of the Carmelites: Sister Marie-Pierre, reminds us of the link between the reformed Carmel and the Wars of Religion in the thought of St Teresa of Avila. The Carmel was set up specifically "to pray for France".  The house at Compiègne was the 53rd one to be founded in France, in 1641.

Royal connections: The convent was just across the road from the Château, and enjoyed very strong relations with the royal family when they came to Compiègne, above all  Marie Leszczyńska who had a room set aside for her and shared the recreation of the sisters.

There was thus an emotional bond between the Carmel and the monarchy. Mother Teresa Lidoine, who owed her dowry to Marie-Antoinette, did not hide the attachment of the sisters to the royal family. - although it should be emphasised that none of the women were involved in politics, or plotted against the Revolution (Marie Martin).

The composition of the  house at the time of the Revolution:  At the time of the Revolution there were 21 sisters including two paid externs, who were lay servants of the community.

The most admirable was the Prioress, born Claudine Lidoine.  Her writings and conduct show her to have been an exceptional woman.  Two elderly sisters had been nuns for 50 years.  Sister Euphrasia (Mme Brard),  had some problems with humility but  died reconciled to the church.  Sister Julie Louise (Mme Chétien de Neuville), a widow, who was the musician of the community,  composed a parody of the Marseillaise two days before her death. They represented all of France in its geographical and social diversity.  One senses from the writings of Marie of the Incarnation, that these were women who loved each other very much in spite of the little tensions, that they were truly united. 

Their goal was to unite in love of Jesus-Christ, their bridegroom, and to pray for the Church and for France. (Marie Martin).

Reading notes:

• A lot of the detail regarding individual nuns relies on the narrative of Mme Philippe (Sister Marie of the Incarnation) which was heavily edited and needs to be treated with critical caution.   Mme Philippe begun working on her MS at the earliest in 1832 when she was already in her seventy-first year (See Bush, "To Quell the Terror," p.111).
• It is worth emphasising  that the nuns really were close to the Royal family.  Three of the nuns  -  the Prioress, Mme Crétien de Neuville and Madame Philippe herself all owed their placement in the Carmel at Compiègne directly to Louis XV's youngest daughter Marie-Louise of France, Prioress of the Carmel of Saint-Denis. It is perhaps slightly unfortunately for the hagiography, that Madame Philippe, the illegitimate daughter of the Prince de Conti,  preferred  to attempt escape to Switzerland rather than court martyrdom with her sisters.
•  The nuns of today, in their cloistered environment,  offer some insight into the lives of their historical counterparts.  Their situation enforces a demanding combination of emotional intensity and practical constraint.  A religious vocation was admittedly much more commonplace in the 18th century, but this community clearly had a more than usual share of relatively privileged, well-educated and serious minded women.  Anne Bernet describes Mme Lidoine, who was 41 at the time of her death, as a "young, intelligent and cultivated" woman. A cossetted only child, she left behind talented art work and substantial manuscripts meditations: a dominant intellect perhaps, but restless and overwrought, hungry for transcendent meaning?
• As Marie Martin notes, Madame de Brard, Sister Euphrasia, is another individual who stands out from the pages of history as a definite  personality.   Here, once again, was a woman buoyed with the confidence born of easy familiarity with royalty.  In happier days she had once upset the Queen herself with her teasing, though the gentle Marie Leszczynska willingly forgave "my so lovable philosopher nun".  She long feuded with Mme Lidoine, whose preferment she resented. 
• Some pertinent information seems missing from the  presentation.  We have little sense of the nuns' external contacts, though we know they habitually corresponded with relatives and, at the height of the Terror, could make journeys to the capital on family business.  It would also be interesting to try to explore their associations within the local Church hierarchy.  Jacques Brunet draws particular attention to the dominant influence of  their Director of Conscience, Jean-Baptiste Courouble, a refractory priest,  with whom they continued to correspond even after his exile to Belgium in November 1792. 
• An example of "geographical and social diversity"?  Mme Philippe was actually very reluctant to include the two externs and in the first versions of her manuscripts, acknowleged only fourteen martyrs.

[13:35]  Historical introduction - 1.   The nuns are forced to confirm their vocation

There follows a very general introduction to the religious policies of the Revolution. (Patrice Gueniffey Jean-Christian Petitfils; Xavier Snoek):

• There was a very close relationship between the Crown and the Church under the Ancien Régime, in which the King had a sacred role.  
• The Church fulfilled an important social function in education, nursing, care of the poor.
• Hostility towards the Church was widespread in educated society, where the Enlightenment had spread anti-clerical discourse. 
• The Church became important politically in the early Revolution, first financially (nationalisation of Church property).  Secondly, the Church, as enemy of the Enlightenment, became the enemy of the Revolution: "It was necessary to abolish, eradicate, destroy it, to realise the Revolutionary promise".   There was an "onward march of secularisation".  In October 1789 religious vows were suspended, then religious orders were abolished.

[16: 35]: On 4th and 5th August 1790 the Directory of the town of Compiègne arrived at the convent; the nuns experienced a difficult violation of their cloister.  Each one was interrogated separately behind closed doors, with a guard in attendance. The nuns were required to testify that they were there of their own freewill (Sister Marie-Pierre reads from the text)

Reading notes 

• The inadequacy of the general account of the relationship between the early Revolution and the Church does not need labouring.  I think the analysis of "the Enlightenment" as the enemy of Catholicism probably reflects Patrice Gueniffey's own position
• The omission of any discussion of the local situation in Compiègne is a pity, especially since  Jacques Bernet's research is readily accessible.  From his findings, it seems that local moderates, like the mayor,  worked hard to achieve damage limitation in difficult circumstances. 
• There is no need to infer undue brutality on the part of the authorities.  Individuals like the deputy Dominique Garat, the prime mover behind the directive of  1790, genuinely believed they were rescuing "sequestered virgins", hence the private interviews and armed guards. The local authorities afterwards left the nuns conspicuously untroubled.
• For more details of the nuns' statements, see Bush p.83-85.  The nuns' replies, still extant as recorded by the Directors' secretary, are all signed individually.  Some of this language - like much late 18th-century rhetoric -  already has more than a hint of martyrdom, though clearly some of the sisters were more sophisticated than others:

 "In their statements, seven of the eighteen professed, including Madame Lidoine herself, invoked the image of death, stating they wished only "to live and die" in their religious state. In addition to her statement, Madame de Croissy, novice mistress and former prioress, pulled a three-stanza poem out of her pocket. She asked the Revolutionary Directors to read her verses on the vanity of the world's cares, its judgments, and its so-called "freedom." She opted for the sweet chains binding her to God, knowing that all the world could offer was of little worth.Madame Thouret's contemporary, Madame Piedcourt, answered with the same courageous flourish with which she would confront the executioners on the scaffold. She boldly affirmed that after 56 years as a Carmelite she would give "anything in the world to have as many years again to give to the Lord." As for Madame Brard, Marie Leszczynzka's "so lovable philosopher nun," she said that she would not give up her religious habit even if it meant shedding her blood.

Special mention is due the simple, touching intimacy with Jesus Christ found in the answer of the young and semi- illiterate Madame Vérolot, the last professed. Again this young lay sister displays that same faith and childlike abandonment already seen in her answer to Madame Lidoine's concerns prior to her profession. Just as on that occasion she had confidently stated that the dear Lord would take care of any danger she might be in, so now is her reply, as recorded by the Committee's secretary, equally impressive. 'Sister St. François-Xavier declared that a well-born wife sticks to her husband, and that nothing in the world could cause her to abandon her divine spouse, our Lord Jesus Christ; and said she didn't know how to sign her name'.  (Bush, p.83-84)

[18:30] Inside the modern Carmel 

After the Revolution nothing remained of the old convent of the Carmelites.  A new community, was created in the the 19th century; in 1992 the modern Carmel was moved to a new location several kilometres outside the town, in the commune of Jonquières .

The modern nuns at prayer in a still from the film.  (I fear for them: the website says there are twelve sisters,  but there appears to be five or six in the video.)

Thanks to the dignified and commanding presence of the nuns, this is one of the most powerful parts of the film. There various short interviews with the Prioress, Sister Line-Marie, whose personal devotion to the martyrs was kindled by a visit to the Picpus cemetery, and with other members of the community.   In a  particularly moving scene, the elderly Sister Thérèse de Jésus, who sadly died this January, explains how she personally related to the sacrifice of the executed Carmelites:  "In the depths of my heart the thought of martyrdom is imprinted. For me it is the natural outcome of a life of love given; when one loves, one gives everything, to the furthest limit."(20:19).  This  interview was later reissued separately on YouTube; François Lespes has reported that the video received more than 20,000 views in a week, and inspired almost 1,000 comments.   

 

For me, even more poignant, is the section of film in  which Sister Marie-Pierre,  in the company of  her aged predecessor as archivist, visit a room containing rows of box files.  These contain over 3,000 letters from the faithful detailing various cures and graces received through the martyrs' intercession. The old lady, who has been hoping for a canonisation for 40 years, is off to a nursing home next week, but Sister Marie-Pierre assures her she will seek her out, come what may, if there is good news to be had.....

 [27:00] Historical introduction - 2:  The nuns are obliged to leave their  house 

On 14th September 1792, the Feast of the Holy Cross, the nuns were obliged to abandon the convent and  disperse to private houses. They maintained the discipline of religious life as far as possible, and,  for a few months, attended mass in the Église Saint-Antoine. 

[29: 00] The Act of Consecration

[29:00] A mysterious dream:  A few month before their expulsion the Carmelites  evoked a dream experienced a hundred years previously by one of the sisters at their convent. 

In the 17th century one of the nuns of the Compiègne had a striking dream in which she saw the whole community, excepting only two or three sisters, enter into the glory of the Lamb, with the palms of martyrdom in their hands.  The sisters in 1790 knew of this dream and came gradually to understand that it could predict their martyrdom.  And, indeed, the whole community, apart from three sisters, was to perish.  Today we can consider this dream, by Sister Élisabeth-Baptiste, to be a premonition (Marie Martin) 

[Ouch! Are we seriously being asked to believe the dream was supernatural?]

[30:30] An Act of Consecration:  Mother Teresa of Saint-Augustine, burned with the same zeal as St. Teresa of Aquila and searched for to a way for the sisters to save France in their humble place of prayer.  At the time of the community's dispersal, she proposed to her sisters an act of consecration; they would offer their entire being to "appease the wrath of God and so that the divine peace which Christ brought into the world, might return to the Church and State"  (Sister Marie-Pierre, quoting from the Relation of Mme Philippe) .

They offered themselves as a holocaust, as victims, so that peace might return to France.

.

[31:25] The abbé Snoëk supplies the theology: in the vocabulary of the time, "wrath of God" (le colère de Dieu") meant that God had forgotten his people, that He had left them to the chaos of French society at the time.

Further observations:

The Sisters heroically overcame their doubts:   Mother Teresa proposed the act of consecration first to the nuns in her house of refuge. They were five, including the two doyennes. When the two elderly nuns expressed their fear of the guillotine; the Prioress assured them that the decision was theirs (Sister Marie-Pierre).   At the end of the day they threw themselves at the Prioress's feet to ask for forgiveness and declare their readiness.  The whole community pronounced the act of consecration and renewed it daily for two years.

They did not deliberately seek out martyrdom:  "It was not an suicidal wish, that is made quite clear; they simply gave their life totally to Christ for France and the return of peace to France.  It was not a question of martyrdom but of welcoming it if the situation demanded".(Marie Martin)  

 The offering of their lives was a very concrete one because in September 1792 they would have heard of the massacres of priests and the beginning of arrests (Abbé Snoëk).

The Act of Consecration reflects the Carmelite outlook:  Mother Teresa of Saint-Augustine, burned with the same zeal as St. Teresa of Aquila and searched for to a way for the sisters to save France in their humble place of prayer. (Sister Marie-Pierre).

It was "in the grand tradition of the Carmel" to make an offering of their lives. (Abbé Snoëk).

There is some discussion of the cultural influences:   

• Bernanos dramatised the vow to martyrdom, centring part of his drama around Mother Teresa's proposal and the hesitancy of her sisters. 
•  The example inspired Edith Stein, the German philosopher, Carmelite martyr and saint,  killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942.
•  A similar spiritual journey is explored in the film Des hommes et des dieux ("Of Gods and Men"), directed by Xavier Beauvois 2010, which is set in the monastery of Tibhirine, where nine Cistercian monks were kidnapped and assassinated in 1996 during the Algerian Civil War.

Reading notes

• On the "mystic dream", see Bush, p.39-53  In all probability, the dream was "discovered" by Mme Lidoine personally. The text is recorded in her hand in Vol.8 of a surviving 9-vol. set of  Carmelite "Foundations" transcribed by the nuns of the Compiègne house at some time in the 1780s. Mme Philippe specifies only that the Prioress mentioned "a dream of one of the lay sister" to the community for the first time in Easter 1792. 
• The visionary of 1693, Mlle Framery de Turpignant, later Sister Elisabeth Baptiste,  fits the familiar stereotype of a neglected  young woman with unusual imaginative powers. Aged 29 at the time of the dream, partly paralysed, she had lived for the previous 15 years as a paying guest of the Compiègne Carmel, where her widowed mother had become a professed nun. In the dream she meets her "Divine Bridegroom" - fairly clearly an expression of her own claim to a vocation.  In the most relevant, second part of the text,  she sees her companions transported out of their cells and "completely encircled with glory as though they were suns" 

There I saw the glory that the nuns of this convent would have and which appeared very great and exalted to me.  I saw an angel placing the members of the whole community.  What surprised me was to see that many of the young ones were more elevated in glory than many of the older ones.  I saw there several sisters I did not know, but whom I recognised afterwards.  It seemed to me that there was a Lamb at a higher level, who looked at us all very lovingly. I immediately felt I was his and, after a long time, he looked at me with eyes brimming with love. He seemed to be giving me little caresses, and I saw him do as much for all the community. As the angel was placing us I noted that he had had two or three sisters, one of whom I recognized, pass over to the other side, and I greatly feared being of their number, since I understood perfectly that they were not to follow the Lamb, and I so wanted to follow him. These two or three sisters he directed to another place, in another part of heaven. As I'd not yet been placed I strongly feared being one of them. And in that very same instant I felt my- self transported with the community clothed in a white mantle and a great black veil that I did not have before and that delighted me. [translated by William Bush]

Professor Bush comments: "Although martyrdom is not even hinted at in this dream, Madame Lidoine was nonetheless struck that the infirm nun had seen the whole community called "to follow the Lamb" -with only two or three exceptions.  Caught in the upheaval of the end of the eighteenth century, Madame Lidoine wondered if it might conceivably be their own community the angel had so mysteriously designated.  An apostolic call to share more intimately, through their own martyrdom, in the immolation of the supreme "Lamb of God," Jesus Christ, their Divine Bridegroom, could certainly be discerned in such an invitation" (p.42) 

"Why did Mother Thérèse, a young woman, intelligent and cultivated, take notice of the dream of this poor invalid?...In the context of the moment, she found in it a paradoxical comfort, a reassurance that, despite appearances, all was not lost.  She saw a way that, whilst the religious life seemed annihilated, to be useful to France by offering for the salvation of France and of souls, if that were the divine will." Anne Bernet, op. cit.  

The Act of Consecration.  

• In documents going back to 1780, Mme Lidoine  frequently mediated on St Teresa of Avila's purpose in founding the Carmel. She readily embraced the parallel between  the French Church at the time of the Reformation, and her own situation.  She grasped the necessity not only to hold the community together but also of "nurturing within it the flame of love for the Divine Bridegroom as the immolated Lamb of God" (Bush, p.54).
•  A close reading of Madame Philippe's manuscripts, shows that the act of consecration was initially proposed only to to the four choir sisters of Mme Lidoine's own household, Mmes Thouret, Piedcourt, Brard, the three most senior nuns of the community, and Madame Philippe.  In her MS Madame Philippe repeated scratched out the phrases that reveal the fact that only the four sisters were involved, although she did not suppress the fact that both septuagenarians  strongly dissented and were horrified by the guillotine. The scene of the two tearful 76-year-old nuns coming to ask forgiveness of their 39-year-old prioress for their lack of courage is a moving  set-piece. (Bush, p.105-7)
• After much hesitation, the third nun, Mme Brard,  also succumbed to the Prioress's force of personality.  A letter from mid-April 1794 found among the MSS of Mme Philippe, tells movingly of her change of heart: "I hope that the Lord, touched by my repentance, will forgive my faults.  Now that I am trying to restore myself to a state of grace with him, it seems that far from fearing being harvested by the scythe of the Revolution, I actually desire it.  I shall count myself happy to cease living so that I may no more offend my God.". (Bush p.60-61). (It was a pity she did not take more care with the correspondence of her cousin Mulot de la Ménardière, who was perhaps not so ready to become a martyr.)
• We do not know how the proposed act of holocaust was rolled out to the other three households, nor their reactions.  The daily act is mentioned as established practice in a letter of 27th November (Bush, p.108).
• The idea that their vow had the supplementary goal of ending the Terror entered early into the tradition.  It is first mentioned by Jean-Joseph Jauffret, Bishop of Metz, in his memoirs of 1803 (Bush p.110-12). 

Did Mme Lidoine really not court martyrdom?

•  In 1985 Professor Bush discovered at the Carmel in Sens the text, written by Mme Lidoine, of four-stanza Christmas carol, "to be sung at the crèche", which shows her soul "consumed by a dynamic, burning love for the divine Lover". Even so sympathetic a commentator as Professor Bush wonders whether a less fired soul "would have been able to preside over the oblation of her entire community with such maternal grace" (p.113-16)
• There is a certain amount of anecdotal evidence that Mme Lidoine anticipated the threat of the guillotine with a certain fascination. In June 1794 she journeyed to Paris to  spent a week  with her 78 year old widowed mother, who was preparing to leave the capital.  On 14th June she and Mme Philippe witnessed the tumbrils on the start of their long journey to the new site of execution at the Place du Trône-Renversé.  Accounts vary, but it seems that the horror-stricken Mme Lidoine was "eagar to see how saints go to their deaths". According to another well-grounded tradition, in the last months the Prioress made her nuns wear little white caps under their bonnets and clip their hair in preparation for the executioner's axe. (Bush, p.163-4)

[33:50] An interview with Mgr Guy Thomazeau, former bishop of Beauvais. 

We meet Mgr Thomazeau, and the lay Carmelite Claire Millet, who is local spokesperson for the canonisation.  The retired bishop discusses his contribution to the relaunch of the cause.

[36:20]  Historical introduction - 3: the nuns' arrest 

• 1793: The execution of the Queen marked a new stage in the radicalisation of the Revolution, in which certain factions were ferociously anti-Christian.  There began the campaign known as "dechristianisation": anti-religious mascarades were organised... and Notre-Dame was transformed  into a Temple of Reason.  A Festival of Reason signalled  the definitive victory of  philosophical reason over superstition in general and Catholicism in particular.  The arrests of priests multiplied and Mass was forbidden; there were no more services or religious observances.  For a few months a climate of terror reigned in France. Most priests, everywhere in France, were forced into a clandestine existence. (Patrice Gueniffey)
• The nuns of Compiègne were caught up in the struggles between different Revolutionary factions. Robespierre opposed outright atheism and wanted to install a state religion to replace the church.  He proclaimed the Cult of the Supreme Being in 1794.(Patrice Gueniffey)  He was notionally a deist and tried to associate the Supreme Being with the Revolutionary values of  liberty and equality.  There was an "absolutely ridiculously absurd" festival.  (Jean-Christian Petitfils).

[38:30] On 21st June 1794, the nuns were arrested.  They were taken to prison under the taunts of the crowd in Compiègne.

Their refuges had been searched and various religious objects found were later used in the trial. They  were imprisoned for three weeks in the former convent of the Visitandines, then transferred to Paris, arriving on 13th July. 

The journey was a difficult one. The sisters arrived at the Conciergerie with their hands tied. Mme Thouret, aged 78, who could only walk with sticks, was thrown to the ground by one of the soldiers. Recovering, she thanked the man for sparing her life to enjoy the glory of martyrdom. (Marie Martin).

[ 43: 05] The trial

 The nuns were incarcerated in the Conciergerie from 13th July 1794. The 16th September, the eve of their trial and execution, was the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the greatest festival of the Carmelite calendar.  They sang the whole Office for the comfort of the other prisoners.  Witnesses said that in this terrible place they gave the impression of going to a wedding, that  they seemed to radiate joy.  (Jean-Christian Petitfils)

Sister Julie Louise (Mme Chétien de Neuville), wrote on a scrap of paper five couplets to the tune of the Marseilles. The third couplet reads: "Great God who sees my feebleness;  I desire and I fear still; ardour presses me on but give me your aid; I cannot hide my fear when I think of death, but you will be my comfort.  Hasten the moment and make my heart content." Such was the spirit of the sisters on the evening before their death. (Sister Marie-Pierre)

When they learned on the evening of the 16th that their trial was to take place the next day, they gave thanks to the Virgin Mary; they took it as a sign from Heaven that it was the Feast of the Carmel:  the "Wedding of the Lamb" had arrived and the Heavenly "Bridegroom" approached. (Sister Marie-Pierre)

On 17th July the nuns were taken before the  Revolutionary Tribunal.

[45:30] Patrice Gueniffey explains briefly the workings of the Tribunal.  (with some shots of the present Cour de Cassation) At this point the  workings of political justice marked "un sorte d'économie du massacre institutionalisé et quotidien" (45:50)

[46:10] They were first of all accused of having hidden arms in the Carmel.  At this  the Prioress seized her crucifix saying that this was their only weapon (Marie Martin).  

Their  accusers sought all sorts of pretexts, but the Carmelites' true crime was that they had continued to live in their community, to pray together. (Jean-Christian Petitfils)

 They were accused of having maintained their communal life, of  counter-revolutionary correspondence and of possessing images of Louis XV and the Sacred Heart. (Sister Marie-Pierre)

The main accusation was that of fanaticism. The young sister Marie-Henriette de la Providence (Mme Pelras) rose to her feet and asked Fouquet Tinville, what he meant by "fanaticism". He replied "your puerile believes and your stupid religious practices", at which she turned to the Prioress with the avowal, "We have the happiness to die for God":  "The simple fact of having religious images, believing in God and wishing to lead ones life according to one's vocation had become an act of fanaticism and was perceived as a danger by the new masters." (Marie Martin)

Mother Lidoine later tried to save her sisters by taking responsibility on herself and protesting their innocence  When the verdict was given, one of the sisters fainted.  Mother Teresa realised that the sisters had eaten nothing all day.  To ensure they held up, she exchanged  her cloak for a cup of chocolate (Sister Marie-Pierre).

Reading notes

• The general historical summary is carefully constructed.  There are no direct references to the "Terror" and  differences of opinion between the Revolutionaries are acknowledged. There is even an echo of Jacques Bernet's assessment, that the  nuns were "caught up in the faction fights". Nonetheless, the presentation is far from balanced.  I'm not sure "dechristianisation" was really so all-pervading. And, if the Festival of the Supreme Being was "an absurd fête", an outsider could say the same of  the Catholic Mass.
• We would benefit from more of the local back story detailed by Jacques Bernet to make proper sense of the arrest.
• Claude Louis-Denis Mulot de la Ménardière was arrested and executed with the nuns.  He was born in 1741 and so was 52 or 53 years-old in 1794. He was a native of Compiègne, where he probably owned a stables. He stood for mayor in 1791 and was  an inveterate versifier.  He was married in 1779.  In April 1793  he and his wife came to the attention of the Revolutionary Committee as a potential suspects. On 25 August his arrest was demanded.  The couple were imprisoned and, on 27th September , the wife was transferred to Chantilly.  For the time being Mulot himself regained his liberty, only to be rearrested with the Carmelites.  According to pious tradition, the wretched man was so impressed by the sisters that, although once a sceptic, he too died with great Christian devotion The house in Compiègne where he once lived was still known in the 19th century as the as the Pavillon Mulot.
• Were the nuns as innocent as all that?  It is true that the documents seized did not provide evidence of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy, but the sisters scarcely troubled to conceal their dislike of the regime.  They were at best imprudent.  Mme Lidoine and Mme Brard at least seem guilty of a certain arrogance.   Attached to the dossier of the Revolutionary Tribunal was a letter addressed to the Prioress by a nun outside the house, asking her to show more care:  "There is too much talk  at Compiègne and this has been spoken of at Senlis.  Someone of consideration told me that you lack circumspection and that this could have consequences." (Sorel (1837), p.162 nt). Mme Lidoine was arrested - in July 1794! -  with a picture of Louis XVI actually in her pocket - perhaps a memento from her recent visit to Paris.
• I think the main issue here is whether the nuns were really killed "in odium fidei".  The exchange involving Mme Pelras, taken from the account of Mme Philippe, has the  air of a set piece.  Even in Year II, the destruction of private religion was not part of official policy.  The nuns' life in community was presented (however spuriously) as a security risk. 

From the Revolutionary Committee of Compiègne, referring the nuns to the CPS and CGSL

For a long time now we have suspected that the former Carmelite nuns of this city, though lodged in different houses, were still living as a community and following the rules of their former convent.  Our suspicions were not in vain.  Several thorough searches carried out in their houses produced a highly incriminating correspondence; not only would they put a stop to the progress of the public spirit by receiving persons whom they admitted to a so-called "scapular" fraternity, but they also expressed wishes for the counter-revolution, for the destruction of the Republic, and for the re-establishment of tyranny, as you may judge by the 31 items we join herewith.

Official Act of Accusation Against the Carmelite Nuns, drawn up by Fouquier-Tinville. 

...As for the ex-Carmelite nuns, Lidoine, Touret, Brare [sic], Dufour and the rest, though separated by their dwellings, they nonetheless organised meetings and counter-revolutionary cells among themselves and others whom they gathered together, and where, reviving their esprit de corps, they conspired against the Republic.

A voluminous correspondence found in their dwellings show that they did not cease plotting against the Revolution. The portrait of Capet; his testament; the hearts that are sign of rebellion in the Vendée; fanatical and childish objects, with an accompanying certificate by either a foreign or emigrated priest, the certificate dated 1793-all prove their correspondence with enemies outside France.

Such are the marks of the "confederation" formed among themselves. They lived under obedience to a superior and, as for their principles and vows, their letters and writings make the evidence clear. In a pretended hymn, said to be about the heart of Jesus and Mary, one reads: "Send the avenging eagle..." 

This counter-revolutionary hymn was no doubt the one used by the priests of the Vendée to lead the blind victims of their rascality to the murder and assassination of their brothers. One sees in their correspondence with what pleasure they spoke of the treason and other manoeuvres practised by the despots united against the French Republic. In one of the letters found in the dwelling of the Lidoine woman one reads: "They say that the Austrians have forced the French patriots to lift the siege of Maastricht and the six thousand emigrants defending it. God grant success to all this for a still greater good. As for me, I hope that we may serve Him more freely and that I, in a cloister, may do reparation for my infidelities."

Thus, according to this conspirator, men's blood had to be shed to re-establish convents. Finally, all these ex-nuns refused to recognize national sovereignty and the empire of its laws: they re- fused to make the oath society had the right to demand of them in granting them the means to subsist.

They offered only a reunion and gathering of rebels, of seditious persons who nourished in their hearts the desire and criminal hope of seeing the French people put back into the irons of its tyrants and enslaved to priests whose thirst for blood equals their imposture, and also of seeing freedom swallowed up in torrents of blood shed through their infamous intrigues organised in the name of heaven.

Translations by William Bush. 

[ 41:00]  Back in with the modern Carmelites.

We see Bulletin des amis des bienheureuses carmelites de compiegne.  On no.60 - have been doing it for thirty years. This nun is a good quote:  "c'est comme si ce cadeau était pour nous".  A call to walk in their tracks - their martyrdom was the end of their spiritual journey.  For us there is something beatiful in thiss

[50:00] The Execution 

The nuns were transported  to their place of execution in two tumbrils, singing psalms, the misericordia and  te deum, to live out their martyrdom as a liturgy. The crowd looked on in silence and stupefaction. To the novice, Sister Charlotte, who confessed she had been distracted, Mother Teresa replied that she would be able to complete the office in Heaven. 

[53:40] When they arrived at the Place du Trône-Renversé  Mother Teresa requested to be executed last.  She invited the sisters each to renew their vows, for the novice and two lay sisters to take them for the first time. There was an entire Pascal liturgy in which each in turn asked their Prioress for permission to die. There are no witnesses to tell us in what order the nuns were executed, though

Sister Charlotte died first, intoning Psalm 116 in praise of God.  The voices cut off one by one.

"Their martyrdom transformed horror into liturgy, hate into love and death into life" (Sister Marie-Pierre)

The carts could take up to two hours  to reach  the Place de la Nation.  The Abbé Snoek is no doubt correct  to point out that the Carmelites self-consciously "lived out their martyrdom as a liturgy". 

Executions don't supply much in the way of reliable eye-witnesses, so there is really no way to corroborate all the tiny details of the nuns' last words. 

"Mater Dolorosa",
pastel by Mother Teresa of St-Augustine or Mother Henriette of Jesus. 
Collection of the Carmel de Jonquière.
Reproduced in Bush, To Quell the Terror.

The end of the Terror?

[58:55]  Ten days later, on 27th July, the tide turned, and Robespierre was guillotined.  It was the end of the "Great Terror".  All those who loved the Carmelites saw it as a sign of the efficacy of their prayers . It was truly a turning point because the judicial terror, and the ideological violence, was finished (Patrice Gueniffey) .

.

[57: 00] Modern Commemorations

To finish, we see the Carmelites in their memorial crypt; and follow a visit to Picpus Cemetery which took place in the run-up to the canonisation. 

References

Bienheureuses: La véritable histoire des carmélites martyres de Compiègne.  Written and directed by François Lespes 2024. 1 hr 7 m. Co-production  KTO/DE GRAND MATIN 2024.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JaL-k_XQpE&t=2091s

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33294786

William Bush, To quell the Terror: the True Story of the Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne, 1999 [For loan on Internet Archive]

https://archive.org/details/toquellterror00bush/page/n23/mode/2up?view=theater

Anne, Bernet, 'Elles suivront l’agneau' : le martyre des carmélites de Compiègne"  Aleteia, 16.07.2021.

https://fr.aleteia.org/2021/07/16/elles-suivront-lagneau-le-martyre-des-carmelites-de-compiegne