La Branche Verte

Just over sixty years ago the so-called "Branche Verte" was  a conspicuous landmark on the D878  between La Prévière and Juigné-des-Moutiers, on the edge of the forest, a short distance from the Royalist memorial site, the tomb of the "Émigré de La Préviere".  An ancient beech tree boasted a single branch which, as though by miracle, sprouted new leaves in early March, when the rest of the tree, and all those around it, were still bare: "It grew green prematurely before all the other trees in the Forest of  Cornillé" .

Postcard of about 1900 (Wikimedia)

Perhaps unsurprisingly here, on the borders between Anjou and Brittany, this unusual natural phenomenon was associated with a "place of memory". Local tradition had it that during the Revolution a young girl had been hanged from the tree. In some versions her attackers - whether Republican soldiers or Chouans  -  raped her before hanging her by the hair; in others she hanged herself to escape  her persecutors.

Michel Lagree and Jehanne Roche in their survey of memorial sites, tell us that the local folklorist Joseph Chapron, writing in the 1930s, referred to a second "tombe à la Fille", now lost, which was located nearby.  According to Chapron, the woods of La Rochette once sheltered several graves from the 1790s which have since disappeared.  This one was said to have belonged to a young girl who was "encountered by an armed troop and martyred by the bandits."[quoted Lagree (2003), p.69].  The Republican Alfred Genoux, author of La sylve castelbriantaise 1934, specified that the girl had murdered to prevent her from betraying whereabouts of the Chouan chief  Fresnais de Beaumont  (later seized and guillotined in Châteaubriant).  The local journalist and historian Louis Bessière, on the other hand,  preferred to blame Republican troops for her death [Lagree, p.69; and  Reading below]

The stories seem little more than an insubstantial echo of the history of Perrine Dugué or Marie Martin, but the symbolic resonance of the branch itself is clear: 

There is a common core to all the versions of the legend: a young girl was hanged from the branch of a tree during the Revolution and, ever since, nourished by the blood of this innocent, the branch regains its leaves at the end of winter and grows green before all the others. 
(Pierre Péan, see Reading below)

The anthropologist  Jean-Loïc Le Quellec points out that trees have always occupied an important place in Breton folklore:

These stories (ie. those concerning the"Chêne à la Vierge" in La Guerche-de-Bretagne, the "Tombe à la Fille" and the "Branche Verte") which talk about heroes buried at the foot of a tree, which is witness to or instrument of their martyrdom, belong to a common trope,  the "tree on the tomb" 

(Jean-Loïc Le Quellec (1998), p.30-31)

It was said that anyone who dared to cut the Branche Verte would see blood of the martyr flow,  a claim which resulted in damage by curiosity seekers on more than one occasion.  According to Chapron, the site was originally endowed with miraculous healing properties: it was valued particularly for recourse against fever, a common scourge in this humid area. The journalist Pierre Péan relates how, in more recent times, young couples  placed their union under the Branche's protection. 

In the early years of the 20th century there was an attempt to investigate the tree scientifically.  According to the local historian Henri Godivier,  a surveyor from Pouancé commissioned a report.  All possibility of a graft was excluded.  Préaubert, president of the Scientific Society of Angers, concluded that the tree was a natural mutation, which had resulted from the germination of two distinct plants fused together in a single seed case. 

Under the fierce protection of the local landowner, the marquise d'Aligre, the Branche remained unmolested for many years, even though it badly overhung the road.  The family even paid a special tax to ensure the co-operation of the highway authorities. The PTT carefully passed any telegraph wires beneath it.  

Sadly, the Branche Verte finally fell in August 1964.  (A storm in March 1986 is also cited - possibly this was the occasion when the tree itself perished).  

According to local writers, the site and its associated legend will continue to be remembered with great affection for a long time by residents of the region.

References

Michel Lagree and Jehanne Roche, Tombes de mémoire.  La dévotion populaire aux victimes de la Révolution (1993). p.68-69.

Jehanne Roche, "Genèse d'une nouvelle hagiographie aux confins de l'Anjou (xix siecle)". Les Saints et les stars, ed. Jean-Claude Schmitt, 1983, p.143-164. [On GoogleBooks]

Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, "Le chouan dans le chêne et l'arbre sur la tombe "[conference paper], Bulletin de la Société de mythologie française (1998), p.22-41 (Archived)

La Maraichine Normande, post of 18.10.2015:
LA PRÉVIÈRE (49) - LE TOMBEAU DE L'ÉMIGRÉ - LA LÉGENDE DE LA BRANCHE-VERTE
[Extract from the  Dictionnaire de Maine-et-Loire (Archives départementales)]
https://shenandoahdavis.canalblog.com/archives/2015/10/18/32789817.html

Readings

Louis Bessière:  The End of the Branche Verte  

The local journalist Louis Bessière (1915-1978), "L’Œil-De-Bœuf", was a well-known personality in the commune of  Pouancé, just to the north of La Prévière.  This account of the demise of the Branche Verte is from a collection of his articles published in 1995.

Requiem for  the"Branche Verte" ...de Pouancé

"The Branche Verte has fallen down!"  With a glum face my friend La Querré, foreman of works, rang my doorbell at daybreak to bring me the sad news.  Hardly taking time to get myself together, I arrived on the scene only to find our ancient, venerated "Branche Verte" well and truly dead: sawed up into logs piled in the ditch. It had fallen during the night, almost blocking the road.  At dawn a motorist had alerted the gendarmerie and the woodcutters had done their job.

We should take the time to recall the legend which for almost two centuries has protected this branch of beech, overhanging the road against all the regulations. Let us listen once again to Henri Godivier who, in 1900, recounted the neighbouring tales of the Emigré and "La Branche Verte". [In his Histoire de Pouancé et des environs, 1906]

At fifty metres from the tomb of the Émigré, could be seen a beech tree which kept its green leaves long after other leaves had fallen.  No doubt this was the result of hybridisation. But in this magical place, so close to the tomb of a saint, imagination could not fail to come up with a legend.  It was claimed that, shortly after the death of the unknown Emigré, the Republicans took prisoner a young girl who had fallen behind the army of the Chouans.  Having raped her, they hanged her from branch, which has remained green ever since.  It is an attractive thought for sensitive hearts, who readily link the poetry of death with the poetry of nature.

In an alternative version, which the daughter of a  former warden told me yesterday, the young girl hanged herself on the branch using her own hair in order to escape the violence which awaited her.  Tradition adds that the branch bleeds if anyone tries to cut it down. This tradition is still alive: even yesterday, people in the countryside refused to burn the wood, for fear of seeing blood.

A" personage"
It is thus that the "Branche Verte" took on a historical identity,  protected, respected and venerated throughout the region as can be seen from the initials and interlocked hearts which the circle the trunk of the tree to its full height.  Certain inscriptions,  two centimetres in width, testify to an ancient veneration. Witness also the indulgence and care accorded  by the Authorities.  Each new highway inspector must make his decision since the "Branche Verte" extends across the entire highway  without regard for the rules.   M. Théophile Dutertre, warden to the marquise of Alligre, was obliged many times to go by carriage to Segré to plead for the branch's survival.  He had to bind the tree up when young vandals ripped off pieces of bark, sometimes 50 centimetres wide, to see if it would really bleed.  A roadworker only had to suggest chopping it down for his daughter Mlle Thérèse Dutertre...to sigh loudly, "I wouldn't like to be in the place of anyone who touched that tree".  And the "Branche Verte" would stay.

It was a personage, I say, to the point that the telephone cable had to be respectfully lowered and, supreme mark of reverence, the marquis and marquise of Préaulx, its proprietors and protectors, consented to pay a special tax to allow it to overhang the road.

A perennial history
The devotion commanded by the "Branch" had already seized the new forest warden.  M. Jean Fort, who took over from M. Dutertre and M. Macé, having arrived among us from Madagascar.  He had noticed the age of the branch, its sickly condition.  As the tree was bending, he had suggested to Mme de Préaulx, only a few days ago, that it should be circled in iron.  Fate was not to allow this final attempt at salvation.  The "Branche Verte" was condemned.  The tree it grew from had been struck by lightning years ago and it was barely attached. When it fell, an enormous hollow was revealed.  Only the end of the branch was still living, the evident dead wood a worry for the custodians of the past.

"It has had its time", concluded Mother Chenuel.  A sad end for a branch which we have taken into our hearts, a souvenir of Chouannerie. Its demise already raises anxious questions: Is it a sign?  It is a sign that everything passes, even cherished things, charged with history by our hearts and imagination.

Chroniques de L’Œil-De-Bœuf, 1949-1978: Le Pouancéen vu par Louis Bessière [Preview on GoogleBooks]

Pierre Péan:  Ambiguous legacies of a legend

In this extract, the investigative journalist Pierre Péan (1938-2019) meditates on his family's connection to the traditions surrounding the Branche Verte. The work cited is La Tombe des fombrayeux (2003)  by the prize-winning local author Guy Le Bris, a collection of five short stories based on the history of the Chouans.

A Chouan legend

I still have stored in my memory fragments of those miraculous tales, impossible to tell in Paris, which I associate with Saint-Michel-et-Chanveaux and Juigné-les-Moutiers. These legends, associated with  tombs and calvaries, have their roots in the pitiless war between the Bleus and Blancs which took place in the great forests nearby, notably that of Juigné. They generally have a peculiar double reading, in that they can be either Republican or Counter-revolutionary.  Everyone in those parts still knows the tomb of the Fombrayeux, the tomb of the Émigré and the Branche verte. I myself am still impregnated by the memory of these last two.  Why?  Although they no longer live beside these forests, my parents courted on the banks of the étang de la Blisière, where people would come from afar to bath, have fun and dance. On their third meeting they visited the tomb of the Émigré, then, a little later, as was customary in the region, they placed their union under the protection of the Branche verte.

There is a common core to all the versions of the legend: a young girl was hanged from the branch of a tree during the Revolution and, ever since, nourished by the blood of this innocent, the branch regains its leaves at the end of winter and grows green before all the others. For some, the young girl hanged herself to escape from  brutal Republican soldiers or Chouans.  For others the Blues or Chouans raped her before they themselves hanged her up by the hair.  Investigated the different versions and their symbolism, I discovered a disturbing signifiance in the gesture made by my "Chouan of a Mother", when she placed her new love under the protection of the martyr.

In his collection La Tombe des Fombrayeux Guy Le Bris recounts the story under the title "La pataude", a name given to those who betrayed the Chouans.  A young girl is mistakenly arrested by Coeur de Lion and his men for denouncing one of their number and is condemned to be hanged:

"- Have you understood the sentence?   You will be hanged this evening on the branch of this oak tree.  Make use of the time that remains to you to commend your soul to God and ask his pardon.

An hour later the lifeless body of Angélique was dangling at the end of a rope in the soft warmth of a magnificent summer evening. 

 

The next morning at dawn Coeur de Lion was suddenly awakened by piercing cries.  He sprang to his feet.  The Chouans, gathered together, contemplated in disbelief a hallucinating spectacle....

Suddenly one of them, with wild eyes, pointed his finger at the body and cried out:

- See! God has sent us a sign.  We have condemned an innocent girl.  We will be punished.

At these words, they all fled in terrified panic into the woods, making the sign of the cross.

All the leaves of the great oak tree had dried out and fallen during the night to form a thick carpet under Angélique's feet.

Only the branch which held the body  remained green..." 

It is fortunate that my mother died before the publication of my friend Le Bris's book.  She would not have wanted to accept that she had tied her life, her marriage and her future children to a misdeed by her cherished Coeur de Lion!

Since I have started on this quest for my roots,  I have come to understand that the past is reinvented by those who re-appropriate it and that versions of the same facts never agree exactly. But I have seen the evergreen branch that protected me. The tree and its branch are now long dead, but my memory of them remains and will only be extinguished when I myself am gone.
Pierre Péan, "Une légende chouanne" in L'accordéon de mon père (2006). [Preview on GoogleBooks]