Literature and counter-revolution: the case of Vendee

di Jean-Clément Martin
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 24 (2007), p. 47

The only “war” identified as such during the period of the revolution in France, the Vandée war differs from any other counter-revolutionary operation. Th “Vendée war”, which only lasted, in its essential phase, from 1793 to 1796, was considered as the most important theatre of operations in the fight between the two Frances of that time. The “Vendée war” mobilised against it the whole country. Its history becomes a symbol of popular, peasants, catholic resistance, in the centuries to come, making it a symbol for the whole world. This specificity explains the meaning of this article, that does not intend to deal with the whole of the counter-revolution but of Vandée only, whose symbolic meaning entails a peculiar way to see the relations between history, memory and literature.