Perrine Dugué - the saint with tricolour wings

Woodcut by Pierre-François Godard, engraved in Alençon and dated 1796.
From a popular edition of the Complaintes en l'honneur de Perrine Dugué. [Wikimedia] 
Posted by J.P. Morteveille, Vice President of the Amis de Ste-Suzanne/Musée de l'auditoire.
 

Christians, come and listen/ To the story of Perrine Dupré [sic]/Aged only seventeen /

This pretty young girl /Has been reduced to a memory.

On the heath near Blandouet/ On her way to Saint-Suzanne/ 

A villain stopped her/ Eagar for mischief/He wanted to abuse her

Seized by fear/ She said to him in tears/ You treacherous and evil heart!/ 

I would a hundred times rather die/ Than lose my poor soul/ By consenting to your desire

Immediately the wretch/ Knocked her to the ground with great blows/ 

Cracking open her skull/ Like an enraged beast,/Then crushing her under his horse's hooves.

In the spot where he left her/ Where she is buried/ God has created an oracle/

 To show her sanctity/ She often performs miracles/ For those who visit her

By praying to her with devotion/ She will obtain relief/ For all our afflictions and sorrows/

Let us pray to God on her tomb/He will show acceptance of our prayers/ By a new miracle.

In his article of 2012 on the "martyrs" of the Revolution,  which I translated in a previous post, Jean-Clément Martin draws attention to the spontaneous veneration of "patriot saints" which grew up alongside Catholic and Counter-Revolutionary commemorations in the frontier zones of war-torn Brittany.  An odd phenomenon this, which provides an intriguing insight into popular beliefs, and challenges the conventionally accepted boundaries between religious sentiment and allegiance to the Revolution.

The most celebrated examples concern two young women, Perrine Dugué and Marie Martin, both probably murdered by the Chouans. Of the two, Perrine Dugué, the so-called "Saint with tricolour wings", is the better documented. Sources for her life include not only several contemporary reports, but also three printed Complaintes or popular ballads rediscovered by Léon de La Sicotière in the 1890s.