Dear listmembers, On rereading _Eumeswil_ the other day I noted EJs interest in the Vendee. Manuel, the main figure, has studied this uprising against the French Revolution: "Ich habe in Luminar den Weissen Aufstand in der Vendee studiert. Dieser Krieg ist merkwuerdig... Er wird durch die drei Urstaende: Rittern, Bauern und Pfaffen, gefuehrt..Die Republikaner sind weit besser bewaffnet und in gewaltiger Ueberzahl. Das ist die klassische Lage fuer den Waldgang... In der Bretagne war der Wald zu einem Gitter von Hecken reduziert. In deren Deckung begleiteten die Chouans [die Partisanen] die auf den Strassen marschierenden Regimenter und schuechterten sie durch Schreie ein." (p. 286).=20 EJ also tells how the Chouans decided to abstain from killing 5,000 republican prisoners. A decision the Republicans would never have taken. They would without hesitation have slaughtered the 5,000. For a long time the story of the anti-republican revolt in=20 Vendee and Bretagne was hidden from official French history, maybe the first genocide. When the French Revolution started it was in the name of humanity. But already in 1790 things started changing. Provincial assemblies were abolished, clergy stripped of their property. When King Louis XVI was arrested riots erupted in Bretagne. When Robespierre took power horrors began in earnest. Madame Guillotine was working around the clock. In 1793 Vendee revolted. That the revolt was a popular one made it dangerous. Army after army was sent to crush the revolters but they were disciplined, not a rabble, and used both regular and guerrilla tactics. They were joined by local noblemen as leaders. There was great success in the first year and the rebel army swelled to 150,000 men. Then came a crushing defeat toward the end of 1793. But the Republic decided to crush the Vendeens once and for all. "Not one is to be left alive". "Women are reproductive furrows who must be ploughed under". "Only wolves must be left to roam that land". "Fire, blood, death are needed to preserve liberty". The aristocrat in Republican service, Turreau de la Linieres, took charge of 12 s.c. "columns of hell" (douze colonnes infernales) with specific orders to kill everyone and everything they saw. "Even if their should be patriots (Republicans) in Vendee, they must not be spared. We can make no distinction. The entire province must be a cemetery." But the Chouans were still not beaten and in Paris Robespierre met the same fate he had meted out to others but it was not until 1795 a peace treaty was signed. It was, however, soon broken and=20 not until under Napoleon in 1799 that some sort of peace returned to Vendee and Bretagne. The murderer Turreau survived, became an high = official under Napoleon and turned royalist under Louis XVIII. He died an Imperial baron and his name is on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In the end it took to 1832 to suppress the Chouannerie. The 200th anniverary of the French revolution brought the history of the genocide to the surface and in 1993, when the 200th anniversary of the revolt in Vendee was commemorated Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel laureate, was invited to speak to thousands of attendants. "We must not live with lies, the great Russian author said, for otherwise we are not free." On the other hand Robespierre was a very popular image in the Soviet Union. In government offices until 1953 there were often two portraits, side by side: blood brothers Stalin and = Robespierre. It is interesting that EJ chooses in 1977 to bring up Vendee. As always he is ahead of his time. In 12 years the Vendee would surface with a vengeance. Actually EJ should have been in Vendee with Solzhenitsyn to speak, but on the other hand: a friend of Mitterand? Maybe not. With Juengerian greetings Bertil
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