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.  

For a long time her story remained the preserve of local historians. It was first brought to wider attention by Georges Lefebvre in an article published in the Annales historiques de la Révolution française in 1949. The themes raised were further discussed by Albert Soboul in 1956.  Lefebvre's information was derived a study by the abbé Augustin Ceuneau, Un culte étrange pendant la Révolution: Perrine Dugué, la Sainte aux ailes tricolores, 1777- 1796 (1947).

The fullest accessible modern account is that of  Madeleine-Anna Charmelot published in the AHRF for 1983.  To this can be added the research "on the ground" by Michel Lagrée and Jehanne Roche in their classic survey Tombes de mémoire (1993).  Local historians continue to contribute actively: in 1988 the Musée de l'Auditoire in Saint-Suzanne opened a room dedicated to Perrine's memory, whilst articles prepared for the museum by Gérard Morteveille et Anthony Robert  provide the basis for a well-informed entry in French Wikipedia. (See References for details).

Perrine Dugué's body still lies in the modest memorial chapel constructed to house them in 1797.  The chapel stands in a field just off the D7 from Thorigné to Saint-Suzanne and remains the property of  Perrine's descendants.

The life and death of Perrine Dugué

Perrine Dugué was  born in Thorigné-en-Charnie, a little village in Mayennne, 30 kilometres east of Laval and a few kilometres south of the district capital of Sainte-Suzanne (Sainte-Suzanne-et-Chammes). There is some discrepancy as to her exact date of birth but the modern consensus is 24th April 1777. This is consistent with an age of death of eighteen as recorded on her death certificate  (she would have been nineteen in the following  month). She was born at a farm called La Menagérie but, shortly afterwards, her parents, Jean Dugué and Marie Renard, moved to a similar property called Les Pins-aux-Larges on the road from Thorigné to Saint-Denis d'Orques.  She five brothers and at least one sister. Her father died in 1796. The Dugués were presumably modest tenant farmers. On legal documents, the mother was unable to sign her name.  As Albert Soboul noted, the whole family were "brave patriots".

The mid-1790s were dangerous times in Mayenne.  Towns like Saint-Suzanne formed islands of blue, in a countryside dominated by the Chouans.  The Forêt de la Grande-Charnie which surrounded Thorigné and its neighbouring villages became the virtual  fief of the Chouan chief Louis Courtilliers, "Saint-Paul", who more or less controlled the area after 1795. Between 1794 and 1799 there were numerous skirmishes between the Chouans and the local National Guard. 

 Saint-Suzanne itself, with a population of 1,500, had been an early Republican stronghold, but there were also always active supporters of Revolution in the villages: the constitutional priest of Blandouet, where Perrine was killed, was to serve with distinction at Fleurus.  

For the population at large, however, real involvement in the Revolutionary conflicts began with the "virée de galerne", when the Army of the Vendée attempted to cross Maine to reach Granville.  The defeated Royalists retreated in disorder, pillaging as they went.  In October 1793 a troop of 1,200 Republican soldiers was concentrated in Saint-Suzanne and, in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Le Mans in December 1793, Westermann passed briefly through the town. The Republican peasantry organised themselves to defend their houses. They captured fugitives and handed over many to the army or the Revolutionary authorities. It  is reported that on 12th December 1793, having taken refuge with their beasts at Sainte-Suzanne, a band of peasants, temporarily reassured by the presence of Westermann, made a sortie "in support of the pursuit by the hussars". 

Unpublished documents give a sense of the tense atmosphere of the time.  Pillage was a constant threat and the local peasants were often reduced to extreme poverty.  If the Chouans spared them, the hard-pressed Republican soldiers often took what remained.  By 1795 Thorigné, Perrine's village, was directly involved. It is reported that a band of rebels set fire to the houses in order to chase out  Republican troops; in the ensuring exchange of fire, the soldiers, who were heavily outnumbered, were forced to retreat. At a later point 2,000 Chouans surrounded the village. On this occasion thirty houses were burned, together with cartloads of hay, and the inhabitants were forced to flee to Saint-Suzanne. It was perhaps at this time that the church, which had served as the local barracks, was burnt down. The Chouans continued to harry the village and issue threats against its inhabitants well into 1796. ( See Charmelot, "Perrine Dugué",  AHRF 1983. p.454-55)

The Dugué  family were undoubtedly among the defenders of Thorigné.  Two of the brothers, Antoine and Jean, had moved to Saint-Suzanne, where they were incorporated into the companies garrisoned in the town.  Perrine was regularly to be seen going to the barracks in the former church, and it was suspected that she acted as a courier for her brothers.  She would pass along the road to Saint-Suzanne, skirting the forest.  It was said that the Chouans twice threatened to kill her if they caught her again. 

In the reports which followed her death, her murder was attributed both to the Chouans and to a supposed Republican hussar.  However, the testimony collected by the abbé Gérault, curé of Évron, in 1846, together with the family memories of  Canon Pichon reported  in 1891, leave no doubt that it was indeed local Chouans who were responsible. [See Readings].

On 22nd March 1796 (2 Germinal Year IV), the Tuesday of Holy Week, Perrine had taken the opportunity to accompany a group of farmers to the fair at Saint-Suzanne, riding behind one of them on horseback. The names of two of the party have come down to us - one was Canon Pichon's grandfather, M. Marteau of La Babinière, and the other a man called Houtin.  Gérault depicts Perrine as a feisty young woman - to the cautions of her mother and neighbours, she is said to have replied, that "the Devil himself would not stop her."

According to the most convincing accounts, the party was accosted en route by three Chouans, near the boundary between the communes of Thorigné and Saint-Jean-sur-Evre, in the open heathlands of the vast  "lande de Blandouet".  Gérault's informants mention a house called "Beau Soleil" which still features on the maps.  The attackers forced Perrine to dismount and compelled her companions to turn back to Thorigné.  Canon Pichon observed that the men involved were perfectly familiar to their victims: "The farmers were not witnesses to the murder and the circumstances of [Perrine's] death, but they knew very well the three Chouans." 

Further details are provided by Gérault's informants. They reported that several Chouans, watching the road, had set up camp and become fired up with drink.  "One of them arrived at a nearby farm immediately after the murder and, showing his blood-stained sabre, claimed that Perrine had wanted to pass despite their presence, had shouted insults at them as they searched her and that, having found letters in her shoes, they had struck her down with their sabres."   As Robert Triger remarked, the Chouans thereby "claimed to give the murder the character of a political assassination". [See Readings below].

The"Chêne des Evêts"
 Posted by J.P. Morteveille on Wikimedia.  
 

Perrine's mutilated body was generally said to have been discovered in the ditch by the side of the road where she was killed. No-one dared to bury the corpse for four days, presumably through fear of reprisals. The spot in question was later identified as close to the Chêne des Évêts (ou Évais), a prominent oak tree well-known to have been a Chouan signalling post.  The idea that the body was found hanged from the tree is almost certainly a fantasy - no doubt lend credence by the widely-circulated engraving by Letourmy of Orléans (see below).  The tree was felled as recently as 2010 and today the site is marked by a plaque.

Details concerning Perrine's sufferings echo the tales of earlier Christian martyrs. She is said to have still been alive when she found, with one of her breasts almost hacked off.

According to one of the Complaintes:

On l'a trouvée le lendemain; 
Hélas, elle respirait encore. 
(...) L'instant d'après, fermant les yeux, 
Son âme est montée vers les cieux.
[They found her in the morning; Alas, still breathing. / An instant later, her eyes closing,/Her soul mounted to heaven.]

Later pious stories circulated of her soul ascending to heaven in the form of a dove on tricolour wings.

A 19th c. statuette from the chapel.

The phrase la Sainte aux ailes tricolores, which is now quite common on the internet, seems to have been popularised by the title of Augustin Ceuneau's 1947 book; the only earlier use I can find is by the abbé Coutard, who wrote a history of Maine in 1898, where he applied it to a different individual.   

The tale of her ascent to heaven was reported to Madeleine-Anna Charmelot in 1963 as an oral tradition.

A newly discovered eye-witness account 

As recently as 2005  a slightly different - and possibly more plausible - account of events came to light.  A manuscript booklet intitled Histoire de Perrine Dugué was discovered in the attic of an old house, "le Ravelin", in Sainte-Suzanne. The author was the 87-year-old Gervais Pômier, a former notary and official in the commune. The manuscript was dated 24th January 1891, just two months before the old man's death.  Pômier transcribes a much earlier document from 1856, in which he recorded a conversation with a  certain Guillaume Dergère (1784-1857), native of Thorigné, who, as an adolescent in September 1797,  had been present at the exhumation of Perrine Dugué's body and its transfer to the memorial chapel.    According to Dergère, the three brigands had not in fact murdered Perrine on the spot, but taken her to a nearby safe house, known as the "Loge à Cotereau", where they had attempted to rape her;  frustrated by her resistance, they "killed her with blows of their sabres and trampled her under their horses' hooves". She was found thirty hours later, just barely alive, by a man called Bréhin who lived nearby (probably Gabriel Bréhin, who was born in Livet in 1757).  With the aid of some neighbours, Bréhin had buried the corpse, digging a pit and lowering the body into it fully clothed.

[Information from Wikipedia. The original document is now conserved in the Musée de l'auditoire in Sainte-Suzanne]

The  "Loge à Cotereau" is tentatively identified as the modern farm known as the "Loge-Bréhin".  This is consistent with the Farm "Beau-Soleil" as the scene of the attack, and also makes sense of the location of the memorial chapel, which is very close by. The Chêne des Évêts, in contrast, is two-and-a half kilometres away.

 On 26th March Perrine's mother formally declared before the Mairie in Thorigné  that her daughter had died "in the lande de Chamme, on the road from Thorigné to Sainte-Suzanne". No further details were given.  Nor were the guilty men pursued despite the fact they were locals - two were said to have come from Saint-Jean and Saint-Pierre-sur-Evre respectively, whilst the third "lived in the common where the body lay buried", that is in Blandouet itself.   Gérault confirms that there was no follow up; the authorities had no means to enforce respect for the law.  Years later Canon Pichon's mother would point out the house near the village of Vaiges where one of the men still lived [See Readings]. 

In the manuscript found in 2005 Gervais Pômier adds his own memories concerning the assassins, two of whom he refers to by name.  These men, Julien Broul Petit-Bois and (Joseph) Trouillard, were both prominent local Chouans.  Broul Petit-Bois, who was held to be the most guilty, had been rewarded at the time of the Restoration with a  tobacconist business in Sainte-Suzanne; Pômier adds a few verses from a complainte that he had "often heard sung" outside the door.

The making of a saint

Perrine's reputation as a patriotic saint and martyr seems to have been born immediately and spread rapidly into the neighbouring departments. For the next eighteen months, despite the unsettled times, her makeshift grave became the focus of daily veneration.  Certain woodland plants were found there which were said to grow only on the tombs of the blessed.  Flowers bloomed, even in winter. The first  miracle cure, at least according to the Complaintes, was that of an old woman who had assisted at the burial itself.  Others rapidly followed.  Another woman from near Laval, a paralytic, passing the scene of the crime, had asked to be taken down from her horse and, dragging herself to the tomb, recovered the use of her legs. Hundreds now flocked to the grave, which was marked by a wooden cross three metres high, and by a crudely carved tombstone, both of which are still preserved in the chapel today.  A coffer was placed near the grave by the family to receive offerings.  Many pilgrims travelled considerable distances, arriving on foot, or crowded into carriages.  It was mostly an affair of ordinary people, but one hostile royalist mentions a "sieur Rochet" with his three daughters.  At the end of July 1797 the Journal des Campagnes et des Armées reported that there had been 2,000 visitors on the previous Sunday, most of whom left offerings.  The sister of the Saint had distributed a large part of the money to the poor [See Readings].

Eyewitnesses reported that business boomed for local innkeepers and hostelries - indeed the press of pilgrims were such that tents had to be erected and makeshift accommodation found in nearby barns.  Tradesmen touted provisions, wax candles, even dirt from the grave, whilst colporteurs distributed the cheaply printed ballads "throughout France".  Hostile observers later suspected ulterior commercial or political motives, and suggested that bogus cures were orchestrated, though this was impossible to substantiate. 

The chapel

Despite several thefts, the family soon accumulated sufficient funds to finance the building of a memorial chapel.  There were tensions: on 6 Thermidor Year V ( 24 July 1797) the Widow Dugué was brought before the civil tribunal of the department at the request of the cultivators of Saint-Jean, who wanted the monies entirely reserved for the poor of the neighbouring parishes.  However, on 30 Thermidor,  a Republican called Martin Dagoreau, who had recently purchased the adjacent farm of La Haute-Mancellière, donated a parcel of land for the chapel. The terms of the gift expressly forbade Mme Dugué to allow merchants to sell or display their wares in the vicinity. [See Charmelot, "Perrine Dugué",  AHRF 1983. p.461] 

In September 1797  Perrine's remains were transferred to her new resting place.  For fear of the Chouans the body was moved secretly, after nightfall and in silence. Despite this, more than a hundred people formed a procession, carrying candles. Some witnesses later swore that the corpse had been miraculously preserved from putrefaction. Gervais Pômier's informer testified  that he had "seen the wounds on Perrine's face and touched her body, which was perfectly conserved despite eighteen months in the ground." [quoted on Wikipedia.fr]

Today, the chapel remains much as when built.  The site was originally beside the main road from Thorigné to Saint-Suzanne (the D7) but, since the road layout was altered in the 19th century, the chapel is now a hundred or so metres to the west in a field.  It measures a modest nine metres by six.  There were originally two large windows, which have since been walled up, as has the main door.  The original altar, made of white tufeau stone, is still intact, decorated with a simple carved cross and  glory.  The great cross still stands in one corner.  Set in the base of the altar, the stone from the grave marks the spot where Perrine is interred:  

"Here lies buried the body of Citoyenne Perrine Dugué,  

from the commune of Thorignay;

 died 26th March 1796, aged 17(sic)" 

See: Chapelle de Perrine Dugué - la Haute-Mancellière, Saint-Jean-sur-Erve , Inventaire général des Pays de la Loire  Dossier A53002942. 

There are additional entries in the database for the altar  [Dossier/IM53001629]; the cross [Dossier/IM53001634], the funerary slab [Dossier/IM53001630] plus various 19th-century statuettes to be found in the chapel. 

Madeleine-Anna Charmelot notes that the interior of the chapel was initially adorned with a muddled assortment of patriotic and traditional items - tricolour flags but also rosaries and ex-voto offerings.  Today, apart from the great cross, none of this 18th-century paraphernalia remains, just images of saints and artificial flowers.  Only the title of "citoyenne" in the inscription recalls the Revolution.  As far as is known, the chapel was never consecrated and no formal services were ever held there.

Contemporaries observed that the cult died away abruptly after the chapel was built, perhaps within eighteen months of Perrine's death.  The reason is unclear; perhaps the new context was too formal, or perhaps too isolated from the trade that attracted pilgrims? Perhaps, more existentially, the cult lost its immediate grounding in sacred space?  In the 19th-century the family allowed the chapel to be used as a store for fodder and agricultural equipment.  In 1849 there were moves to transfer Perrine's remains to the parish cemetery, but the ecclesiastical authorities forbade any accompanying ceremonial and the promoters abandoned the plan.  Over the years, the grave has been disturbed on several occasions.  Léon de La Sicotière reported that, at different times, the slab had been raised to show the bones to curious onlookers.  The tomb was also desecrated in the early 20th century - indeed, a descendant told Madeleine-Anna Charmelot that she remembered seeing in the family, as a child, a piece of Perrine's skull [See Readings]. 

After falling into a state of disrepair, the chapel has recently been renovated and acquired a new roof.  It can be visited exceptionally on journées de patrimoine, when members of the Dugué family, who still own it, provide guided tours. 

ICI Mayenne, "L'histoire de Perrine Dugué, la Sainte Republicaine" [video], 22.08.2022.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8d02cg

This video, which includes footage inside the chapel, is from a series showcasing little-known monuments of local history.  Featuring Martine Breux, member of the municipal council  of Sainte-Suzanne-et-Chammes.  

The Complaintes

The 19th-century sources report that three "complaintes" (ballads/laments) concerning Perrine were printed and sold.  Although produced in large numbers, these ephemeral works soon became very rare. However, in 1894 the texts were published by Léon de La Sicotière who had unearthed copies in the library in Le Mans.  All three ballads had been collected together in a little pamphlet of eight pages in- 8º, with the imprint of the Alençon printer Jouenne.  Also included was engraving by Godard of Alençon, the wooden plate for which was later found intact on the site of a former printers' premises in Mamers. 

Two other engravings, one by Portier of Le Mans and the other by Jean-Baptiste Letourmy, the famous Orléannais editor and purveyor of popular prints were subsequently also been rediscovered.  Both are in the form of broadsheets with text of the complaintes printed round the edges of the picture.  The engraving by Letourmy is doubtless the "woodcut coloured in blue and yellow" which was mentioned Isidore Bouiller in 1841 [See Readings].

Léon de La Sicotière. "Perrine Dugué",  Revue illustrée des provinces de l’Ouest. 

Vol. 11 (1893) p. 246-253 [Part I]  - On Gallica ; Vol. 12 (1894) p.49-58 [Part II] - On Gallica; p.115-119 [Part III] - On Gallica  p.147-151[Supplement] -  On Gallica

Robert Triger, "Perrine Dugué: son image populaire", Revue historique et archéologique du Maine, January 1894, p.308-313

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k415354k/f308.image

In Brittany, the tradition of sung ballads ("gwerzioù")  is longstanding one, often used to narrate the lives of saints. However, the printed complaintes are not quite the spontaneous product of popular literature that they might at first appear. 19th-century commentators detected a single hand, probably that of a cleric: "They cannot be the work of a gross and ignorant peasant, but rather a constitutional priest" (Triger, p.309).  Gérault identified the writer as Pierre Choltière, vicaire, later mayor of Ballée, an extreme patriot notorious for his impiety.  Léon de La Sicotière, on the other hand,  preferred the abbé Fretté, the constitutional curé of Thorigné; Robert Triger's correspondent Canon Pichon thought it  unlikely that Fretté was the author but conceded that he or his relatives in Alençon might well have been involved in the printing. (Triger, p.309).  

There is clearly no real way to assess how far the ballads represent genuine popular currents.  The most we can say for certain is that the author(s) had at their disposal a number of accurate details (for example the names of Perrine's godparents).  They also seem to have consciously chosen to conceal the political context in order to produce a conventional Christian hagiography with an emphasis on their subject's youthful innocence and her supposed virtue and piety. 

The narrative is broadly consistent across the three ballads. Perrine's murderer is falsely identified as a single man,  a "fripon", a "maraud" or a "cavalier" rather than a Chouan. (Significantly an odd reference slips in at one point to "trois bourreaux" who try to impede the burial).  The engraver Godard - at some remove from events - depicts an  Republican hussar.  No reference is made to a  political motive, just to a sexually-motivated assault. The man offers Perrine "propositions" and "caresses"; or even tries to "abuse" her.  She resists with prayers to God and to Jesus Christ, and with expressions of concern for her salvation.  Then comes a lurid description of her death; the cavalier smashes her arm and skull and (in two versions) chops off one of her breasts. Finally he tramples the body with his horse. It is worth noting that there is no actual rape - presumably she dies with her virtue unsullied. The narrative then relates how Perrine was found in a ditch. The second and third versions recount the various miracles which accompanied her burial. An accompanying text  for the use of pilgrims offers a "Prayer to Our Lord Jesus Christ for pregnant women and travellers".

By Portier of Le Mans, Musée de Tessé, Le Mans  (Getty Images)
In this engraving Perrine is depicted as a Catholic saint, carrying the palm of martyrdom. 

By Letourmy (Musée de l'image, Épinay)  
https://webmuseo.com/ws/musee-de-l-image/app/collection/record/10394

It may be noted that  image engraved by Letourmy does not in fact match the text which surrounds it;  it seems that Letourmy reused a plate depicting the hero of a popular pantomime of 1783: this was Louis Gillet, the "Maréchal des Logis",  a cavalry officer who gallantly rescued a young peasant girl from the clutches of brigands.  Perrine, in contrast, is attacked by a single assailant and no-one comes to her rescue. 

The original was probably the widely diffused copperplate engraving by Martial Deny (below left).
See: Pierre Wachenheim, "Une image pour deux: du Maréchal des Logis Louis Gillet (1783) à "Sainte" Perrine Dugué (1796), Actes des Rencontres du Musée de l'image, 2013
https://museedelimage.fr/telechargement/documentation/MIE_actes_rencontres2013.pdf

Interpretations

The cult of Perrine Dugué clearly forms part of the much wider phenomenon of Revolutionary "tombs of memory",  some sixty of which were identified in the war zones of Western France by Michel Legree and Jehanne Roche in the 1980s.

As Jean-Clément Martin emphasises, the defining feature of those commemorated, whether Republican or Counter-Revolutionary, seems to have been the violent or spectacular nature of their deaths - events which, in some existential sense, needed marking (See Reading below).  

Even in the absence of effective organised religion, the observances clearly owed much to established Christian practice.  In particular, the  they drew on a longstanding Breton tradition of veneration for thaumaturge saints and of "pardons", penitential processions to the sites associated with them.  Like these ancient rites, they were invariably accompanied by a strong sense of sacred space.  Where there could be no formal burial in consecrated ground, veneration centred around improvised graves or the scenes of the "martyrdoms" themselves.  Church rituals were often adapted  - in the case of Perrine, the burning of candles featured strongly. The earth from her grave, which was so avidly collected, was endowed with the magical qualities of a saintly relic.

Aspects of Perrine's story itself also clearly reflect Catholic hagiographies: the miraculous ascent of her soul to heaven, her incorrupt corpse, the magical blooming of flowers on the grave, the prodigies of healing themselves. In the Complaintes Perrine is deliberately assimilated to a Christian martyr and the new cult aligned with Christian belief by offering pilgrims a series of formal petitions and prayers. 

 The insistence in the ballads on Perrine's resistance to rape has lead some historians to focus on themes of gender identity and sexual aggression in the traditions. According to Frank Tallett, the martyrdom of Perrine Dugué  was "defined in terms of resistance to sexual pollution and her saintly quality resided in her purity."(Catholicism in Britain & France Since 1789 (1996), p.127. [On GoogleBooks])   So too Caroline Ford concludes that "narratives of sexual danger surrounding the female martyrs of the Revolution were as much an inherent part of the language of republican female virtue as they were a reflection of time-honoured Christian virtues of chastity and sexual renunciation"  Divided Houses: Religion and Gender in Modern France (2005), p.108. [GoogleBooks] 

I am not sure this is justified. Outside the printed Complaintes (written no doubt by a man) Perrine's personal virtue is not much emphasised. Her gender, like her youth, contributed to her  vulnerability as a victim, whilst masculine aggression merely added a nasty edge to the narrative of  her violent death.  Her cult was certainly not a patriarchal one. The pilgrims to her tomb were mostly women, seeking miraculous remedies for time-honoured feminine anxieties - illness, pregnancy, sick and lame children. 

To what extent did Perrine's commemoration have a political dimension? Jean-Clément Martin justly observes that the impulse behind  the "tombs of memory" transcended political allegiances. In Perrine's case, by the 19th century, her Republican credentials were uncertain.  However,  Madeleine-Anna Charmelot argues that not too much should to be read into this:  the local population may just have exercised cautious through fear (p.460).  Any Revolutionary cult accoutrements - flags and the like -  were likely to have been lost in the vicissitudes of 19th-century politics.

References

Georges Lefebvre, “Perrine Dugué La Sainte Patriote.” AHRF, 1949, No. 116 p. 337–39. [On JStor]  
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41925708  

Madeleine-Anna Charmelot, "Perrine Dugué, la « sainte aux ailes tricolores »", Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 1983. No.253  p.454-465
https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1983_num_253_1_1063

Michel Lagree and Jehanne Roche, Tombes de mémoire:  la dévotion populaire aux victimes de la Révolution (1993) p.92-4. 

"Perrine Dugué" on Wikipedia.fr.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perrine_Dugu%C3%A9

Mairie de Thorigny website, "Un peu d'histoire sur Perrine Dugué..." by Dominique Paradis, who is a descendant. (archived)

https://web.archive.org/web/20231013235016/https://mairiethorigne53.fr/un-peu-d-histoire--

Annie Duprat,  "Provinces-Paris, ou Paris-provinces ? Iconographie et Révolution française", Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 2002,  vol. 330(4): p. 9-27 [Open Access article]

https://www.cairn.info/revue-annales-historiques-de-la-revolution-francaise-2002-4-page-2.htm

Stéphane Hiland,  "Tombes de mémoire de la révolution : destins croisés de deux saintes populaires"

La Mayenne, Archéologie, Histoire, 2007, No.30 p.144-149 [Available on Academia]

Readings

The murder

Report published in the Journal des Campagnes et des Armées, 11 Thermidor An V (29th July 1797)

Perrine Dugué was assassinated last year, on the Tuesday of Holy Week, in a most atrocious manner by three Chouans who met her in the landes de Chammes a league from the little town of Sainte-Suzanne, where she was going on the pretext of a fair, but in reality to see her brothers, ardent Republicans, who had taken refuge there.  This person was seventeen years old, a convinced patriot, daughter of a widow who farmed in the commune of Thorigné.  All her family had always professed the purest republicanism and, for that reason, had suffered a thousand persecutions on the part of the Chouans, who last year carried off part of their livestock.. ..

Quoted in Alphonse Angot, Dictionnaire historique, topographique et biographique de la Mayenne.

 Online edition: http://angot.lamayenne.fr/notice/T2C04_BIO0192

Letter addressed to the Minister of Police, 4 Vendémiaire VI, 25th September 1797, erroneously ascribing the murder to a Republican soldier. 

[Perrine had two brothers who, to avoid conscription, were obliged to abandon their family and take refuge in the woods]  She "met three soldiers of the Republic who raped her, after she had put up a good resistance as expected, then cut her up into pieces....In the last six months when the good priests have dared  to show themselves, they  discovered in her an inconceivable treasure for Christians of good faith. These good priests, moved by divine inspiration have disinterred the body and soon remarked quickly the different morsels of flesh, brought together, rejoined...."

Quoted in  Angot, Dictionnaire... de la Mayenne, as above.

 Isidore Boullier,"Note sur Perrine Dugué", first published in 1841  

This is one of the earliest written accounts. The author knows the basic story of the murder, but has only vague hearsay as to who was responsible. 

Perrine Dugué, who was born in the parish of Epineu-le-Séguin and was aged seventeen, belonged to a family of patriotic farmers, who lived in the métairie of Les Pins-au-Large, in the commune of Thorigné.  On the 28th March 1796, she left in the morning for Sainte-Suzanne in order to see two of her brothers who had taken refuge there.  She was assassinated, and her body was found near La Manselière  [ie. the Farm of  La Haute-Mancellière, the site of the chapel] in Thorigné.

It has never been know with certitude who committed the crime.  Some say that it was an individual who attacked, or tried to attack, her honour.  Another version attributed her death to the Chouans, who accused her of revealing their movements and hiding places, and of carrying correspondence for the Republicans; they killed her to prevent these denunciations and acts of espionage, of which several of their number had been victims.  Whatever happened, Perrine Dugué was buried on the spot where her body was found.

 Boullier, Mémoires ecclesiastiques concernant la ville de Laval (1846), p.301-304. [On GoogleBooks]

From Gérault, Mémoires ecclésiastiques concernant le district d'Évron (1847)
The abbé Gerault, the curé of nearby Évron made a sustained attempt to collect the evidence.  This text remains a principal source.
... We have been helped in our research by several clergy from the area who have collected information from the young woman's contemporaries, and even talked to her travelling companion on the road to Saint-Suzanne.

Perrine Dugué was born at Épineu-le-Séguin in 1779.  Some time after she was born, her family took on the farm of Pins-aux-Larges, in the parish of Thorigné.  The girl had five brothers, two of whom are still living.  The whole family were Republicans and openly showed their hatred towards the Chouans;  they spied on their movements and tried to discover their hideouts in order to denounce them.  They had aggressively pursued the Vendéans who, after the defeat at Le Mans, had scattered about the countryside near the road from Laval. We learn that they treated them with horrible cruelty. This conduct angered the Chouans and two of the Dugué brothers had taken refuge at Sainte-Suzanne with several other Republicans from neighbouring parishes.

Perrine shared her family's opinions and, although she was only seventeen, she showed a great deal of bravery and daring.  She was often to be seen going to the church at Thorigné which served as a barracks for the (Republican) soldiers;  she was suspected of taking correspondence from there to her brothers in Saint-Suzanne.  The Chouans had twice stopped her and threatened to kill her if she came back.  In spite of these threats she wanted to go to the fair at Sainte-Suzanne, on Holy Tuesday, 26th [sic] March 1796.  Her  mother and her neighbours made futile efforts to prevent her: one man from Saint-Jean even warned her that the Chouans would be on the road.  To all these entreaties she replied that the Devil himself would not stop her.  She left, mounted behind one of her neighbours, carrying with her some provisions.  Three Chouans intercepted them at the boundaries of the parishes of Saint-Jean-sur-Evre and Thorigné, at a place called la prise de Bignons (where the house called Beau-Soleil has since been built).  They made Perrine Dugué get down from the horse and sent her travelling companion back to Thorigné.  That morning they had already turned back all the  other people heading for the fair, telling them that it would not take place that day.  The men had camped out during the night and  were fired up by wine.  It is not known what exchange took place with Perrine; but one of them appeared at a nearby farm immediately after the murder, showing his blood-stained sabre. He claimed that Perrine had wanted to pass despite their presence, had shouted insults at them as they searched her and that, when they found letters in her shoes, they had struck her down with their sabres.

The death of Perrine Dugué caused a lot of talk in the local area: everybody, even the Chouans, condemned the brutality of the three men, whose names we forebear to give.  The victim was buried in a field, a few paces away from where the crime had been committed.
François-Augustin Gérault, Mémoires ecclésiastiques concernant le district d'Évron (1847), p.171-175.  [On GoogleBooks]

Letter addressed to Roger Triger from Canon Pichon, former Secretary General to the Bishopric of Mans, dated 28th May 1894.
My mother's family were from Thorigné. My maternal grandfather, M. Marteau, was the farmer at La Babinière, the neighbouring farm to Les Pins where the Dugué family lived.  He was among the farmers who went to Sainte-Suzanne, with Perrine among them.  They were in the landes de Blandouet, a little beyond the road from Le Mans to Laval, when three Chouans appeared who made Perrine Dugué get down from her horse and obliged the farmers to return home, abandoning the unfortunate girl to them.  The farmers were not witnesses to the murder and the circumstances of her death, but they knew very well the three Chouans.... 

My mother was born in 1798, two years after Perrine's death; but, from her father and from the Dugué family, she know the story perfectly well.  A little later, when my parents lived in Vaiges, my mother showed me many times a miserable little house near the edge of the lake, on the road from Vaiges to Laval, where one of the Chouans who had stopped Perrine still lived...This Chouan was still living in Vaiges in 1840.  I myself knew one of Perrine's brothers who was a servant of M. Levannier, who became priest at Saint-Pierre-sur-Evre in 1847.  I must have seen him in 1848 or 1849....
Cited by Triger in an article on Sainte-Suzanne, Revue historique et Archaeologique du Maine, t.62, 1907, p.43-44. Footnote.  [Internet Archive]

The pilgrimage develops

 From the Journal des Campagnes et des Armées, 11 Thermidor An V (29th July 1797)
Since her death this unfortunate young person has been said to perform miracles. This has attracted to her grave, every day and from distant regions, an incredible stream of people; eye-witnesses assured me that last Sunday there were more than two thousand.   All these pilgrims do not fail to leave offerings, which the sister of the saint comes to collect in a chest, and although a large part is distributed to the poor, I know that she has already amassed a considerable sum... [The priests] have spoken out from the pulpit against the reality of the miracles...or considered ways to turn events to their profit....The Chouans, in whose territory the unfortunate is buried, have already tried to frighten the crowd, but have only succeeded in attracting the names they deserve -  assassins of the friends of God. The murderer himself, who lives in the commune where the body is buried will, I believe, be forced to abandon the area in order to avoid a devotion which reproaches him every day for the horror of his crime." 
Quoted in Alphonse Angot, Dictionnaire historique, topographique et biographique de la Mayenne, Vol. 2 (online at: angot.lamayenne.fr/notice/T2C04_BIO0192 )

Letter addressed by one of his parishioners to François Pineau, former curé of Vallon, a refractory priest who had been deported to Spain. Dated 23rd July 1797.

It happened that a year ago in Holy Week a girl of 16 or 17 was killed by the Chouans in the lande de Blandouet because, it was said, she was carrying provisions to her brothers who had taken refuge in Saint-Suzanne. For the past six months patriotism has numbered her among the saints.  She performs miracles every day, they say; to the extent that people arrive in droves at her tomb from all around, often in groups as big as 1,000 or 1,500. An inhabitant of Le Mans has set up a stall selling refreshments. They come in carriages, sometimes loaded with twenty or thirty charges' weight in provisions and people who are as crippled in mind as in body.  They all carry candles; they take dirt and bits of waste wax to make balls to rub on their bodies, then they lie on the grave. Can you believe that Sieur Rochet went there with his three daughters! When he returned he said that SHE had performed a miracle in his favour, that his hand, which he could scarcely use, now moved much more freely...

Cited in Albert Coutard,  "Perrine Dugué, son culte populaire", La Province du Maine, Vol.6 (1898) p.237-244.[On Google Books] p.242-3. 

Letter addressed to the Minister of Police, 4 Vendémiaire VI, 25th September 1797
Nine women from Château-Renault (Indre-et-Loire), with illnesses of various sorts, but still able to walk, have just made a pilgrimage to the village of Thorigny,  formerly a district of Sainte-Suzanne, a distance of thirty leagues from their home.  This aim of this pious journey was to obtain cures through the intercession of Perrine Duguet, to whom miracles have ascribed these last three months.

If I were to say to you that these women returned cured, you would not believe me; but  certainly  those whose health has improved, whether naturally or through the exercise, credit  the intercession of the saint. Those who still have their infirmities exonerate the blessed Duguet and claim that they lacked the necessary faith.

If bands like this go thirty leagues there and back, to the tomb of Saint Perrine Duguet, the chaplain and the innkeepers of Thorigny will be very enthusiastic - their fortune will soon be made.  If only to avoid mockery, the pilgrims do not stint to recount notable cures, repeat them and call each other to witness. Their neighbours will be unset if the stories prove untrue.  They love miracles, want to believe them, repeat what has been said and use their imagination to embellish the accounts.   Above all they plan to go themselves  on a pilgrimage....This nonsense debases the people and puts them to ruinous expense...

Cited Triger, " Sainte-Suzanne", Revue historique et Archaeologique du Maine, t.62, 1907, p.45-6 footnote.  [Internet Archive].

Hostile witnesses described a combination of pious credulity and deliberate imposture:

[Some time after Perrine's burial], an old woman from the neighbourhood claimed to have discovered on her grave certain extraordinary herbs which  grew only on the tombs of the blessed.  She told her equally credulous friends and soon these fine theologians were  declaring loudly that Perrine Dugué was a saint. With only apostles like these, the cult would not have got very far.  But certain partisans deliberately encouraged the rumours, since they thought it might prove useful  if the vulgar believed in a patriot saint. They went further.  They claimed that their saint performed miracles, that marvellous cures had taken place on her tomb.  From then on a prodigious crowd of the crippled, blind, sick of all sorts, began to arrive, from twelve or fifteen leagues around, and no doubt from even further away - for the reputation of Perrine Dugué began to spread through almost the whole of the west of France.  If the sick and disabled had simply returned as they came the Thaumaturge would have soon lost credit; but the situation was manipulated. An unknown cripple with a two sticks, or a blindman led by the hand, would appear in the crowd, pray on the tomb, then declare himself cured; the outlookers would cry miracle and the fervour would be prolonged for another week or two. These pilgrimages began only after the Chouans had laid down their arms, and Catholics took no part but loudly condemned the stupidity and impiety.

Commercial interest seconded political interest; it was a good source of profit sell candles for the saint's tomb or refreshments to her devotees.  The earth of the grave was itself the object of a lucrative trade; finally they built a chapel on the site of the grave.

That was not all.  Three ballads  were composed and printed about the so-called saint, and itinerate performers sold them, not just in this area but throughout  France. The best known of the three was illustrated with a wood engraving, coloured in blue and yellow.  It is noteworthy that none of these ballads say that Perrine Dugué was the victim of our civil troubles; all three represent  her only as martyred for the sake of sexual modesty, and attribute her death to a single individual who wanted to dishonour her. It seems doubtful that this young woman was killed by the Chouans, since this would have been a favourable opportunity to pour odium on them.

Imposture cannot survive forever; the mummeries which we have spoken of lasted less than two years.  The public opened its eyes, the pilgrimages ceased, the tomb fell into ruin and the chapel was converted into a barn.  However a few stubborn fools still venerate the young woman in secret  and it is possible that even now there are naive people who invoke her aid in secret, hiding themselves from public mockery.
Boullier, "Note sur Perrine Dugué", in  Mémoires ecclesiastiques concernant la ville de Laval  (1846), p.301-304. [On GoogleBooks]

The Republicans, who saw that the powerful impression made by such a murder, wanted to make a saint of this girl, in order to persuade the people that there were saints in their party.  They spread the rumour that she had been assassinated by an individual who had threatened her virtue.  Soon the site of her grave was seen as an extraordinary place and an old woman claimed to have found certain extraordinary herbs that only grew on the tombs of saints.  Miracles were publicised and Perrine was declared a saint.  A cross was erected and a sort of tomb created, with a coffer to receive offerings.  

 At the end of two months, great numbers of strangers arrived. The supposed lame and blind pretended to pray at the graveside and cry miracle.  For eighteen months the influx of pilgrims was considerable, especially on Sundays; the inns of the neighbouring towns could not accommodate them all, but tents were erected on the nearby plain, and people were put up in local barns. Vast quantities of wax candles were burned on the tomb, and whole sacks of earth were collected with a religious reverence.

Three ballads were composed on the death of Perrine Dugué; wandering minstrels sold them throughout the department and even across the whole of France.  If the three complaintes did not attribute the death of the young girl to the Chouans, and made her a martyr of modesty, it was because the Republicans had an interest in proclaiming her sanctity in a plausible manner. M. Chaulière(sic.), the former vicaire of Ballée, is said to have been the author.  This juring priest, who fell into all sorts of excesses, was killed by the Chouans.

Although the trunk was robbed several times, the abundant receipts allowed the Dugué family to buy a plot and construct a chapel a kilometre away. The body of the saint was exhumed and carried one evening to the chapel.  Despite an attempt to keep this translation secret for fear of the Chouans, a crowd of a hundred or so still attended, with candles in their hands.  It was claimed that the corpse was incorrupt: but two witnesses to the ceremony testified that it was almost impossible to follow the convoy closely because of the stench.  When the remains had been deposited in the chapel, they were covered with a sort of altar, and the cross from the grave was placed nearby.

It is to be noted that the miracles ceased as soon as the so-called saint was transferred to the chapel.  The number of pilgrims diminished rapidly.  Today one sees only the occasional old woman from outside the area.  The chapel, which is built a stone's throw away from the strategic road from Sainte-Suzanne to Sablé, still belongs to the Dugué family, who permit the neighbouring farmer to store forage for his animals there.  
Gérault, Mémoires ecclésiastiques concernant le district d'Évron (1847), p.171-175. [On GoogleBooks]

Later history

19th-century writers confirm that the chapel was disused and the cult  long abandoned:

Today, it is only at rare intervals that a few old ladies, ignoring the lessons of their curés and the ridicule of unbelievers, come in secret at night to pray at Perrine's tomb and ask for cures for themselves or their loved ones.

In 1849 moves were made for translation of the body to the parish cemetery, but the ecclesiastical authorities forbade any extraordinary ceremonial and the promoters abandoned the project.

We have been told - but cannot confirm - that, even after the Concordat, orthodox priests led traditional penitential processions, conducted public prayers and even celebrated a mass in Perrine's chapel...Such a weakness would have scandalised their fellows.  There is no official record in the episcopal archives either in Le Mans or Laval.  However, even now [Perrine Dugué]  is spoken of in the locality with a certain reserve and mystery.
Léon de La Sicotière. "Perrine Dugué Part III",  Revue illustrée des provinces de l’Ouest (1894)   p.115-119;  p.117 [On Gallica]

With the exception of the cantons of Sainte-Suzanne and Meslay in Mayenne or Brûlon and Loué in Sarthe, the Maine has now completely forgotten the once-famous Perrine Dugué. However, in certain parishes in these districts, beggars going from door to door, still sometimes sing ballads in her honour.  But even this feeble homage is fast disappearing....
Coutard,  "Perrine Dugué, son culte populaire....(1898) , La Province du Maine, Vol.6 (1898) p.237-244; p.243.[On Google Books] . 

Madeleine-Anna Charmelot visited the chapel in the 1960s:

Between 1960 and 1964 the chapel was maintained perfectly, and Madame Bouvet, who farmed at La Mancelliere, opened it willingly to visitors.  Perrine still rests beneath the inscribed stone (now almost illegible) although the tomb was disturbed at the beginning of the 20th century and some of the bones removed.

 [This information was given to me by Madame Roca, a relative, who remembered seeing in the family as a child a fragment of Perrine's skull - she did not know what had become of it.] 

 The chapel is simple, small, the interior whitewashed with exposed beams.  It is bright on the inside despite the fact that the windows are partly walled-up.  The altar, with its circular pediment, is decorated by a triangle with clouds and sunrays.  On either side of the pediment, there are two candleholders, the left one of which is broken.  There is no tabernacle and no one was able to tell me if a service of any sort had ever been held here.  

When I returned in August 1981 the custodian had since died and the site had fallen into disrepair.  The door was covered by brambles which had to be slashed down.  The ironwork of the skylight had crumbled allowing numberless birds to foul the altar, the tomb, the ground, the benches....
Charmelot, "Perrine Dugué",  AHRF 1983. p.462-4.

https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1983_num_253_1_1063

Some verdicts of the historians

This surprising cult offers great interest for the historian.  On the one hand it testifies to the persistence of a primitive mentality passionately attached to the magic conception of the world,  even it seems among those peasants attached to the Revolution, and on the other hand it allows us to see how, across history the cult of a saint can arise from dramatic circumstances.
Lefebvre, G. “Perrine Dugué La Sainte Patriote.” AHRF, 1949, No. 116 p. 337–39; p.339 [On JStor]  
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41925708  

These two examples (Perrine Dugué and Marie Martin) show how a syncretism established itself with the old forms. Traditional religious observances were enlarged to include republican and patriotic saints; old religious practices were preferred over political innovations.  Certain religious beliefs, condemned by the Church itself, were not to be denied.  The patriotic saints were credited with effective virtue; they performed miracles. The revolutionary cult remained very close to Catholicism.
Albert Soboul, "Sentiments religieux et cultes populaires pendant la Révolution: saintes patriotes et martyrs de la liberté", Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions  (1956)  No.2: p.73-87; p.76-77.
https://www.persee.fr/doc/assr_0003-9659_1956_num_2_1_1297

"Tombs of memory" can be found throughout the region, commemorating dramatic deaths which became the focus of a cult.  Astonishing, in Maine and Brittany the practice was applied to both  Revolutionaries and Counter-revolutionaries without distinction...It was their violent and spectacular deaths which made them subjects of devotion.  The tombs of two patriot saints are particularly noteworthy in this respect since the identity of their killers and the motives for their murders ultimately remain unknown.

Beyond considerations of conviction or belief, the act of killing itself, in this troubled period and zone of long atrocious war,  sufficed to arouse collective expectation around the bodies of the sacrificed. 
Jean-Clément Martin,  "Martyrs et Révolution française, autour du sacré", in D. Borne et J.-P. Rioux ed, Violences et religions, Strasbourg, 2012, p. 55-66;  [Available on Academia.  quote: p.3-4 of this pdf.)