SIXTEEN Discalced Carmelites recited together their consecration vows at the foot of the scaffold. Then they lifted their hearts to heaven singing Veni Creator Spiritus. They were condemned as traitors and were sentenced to die by guillotine at Barriere de Vincennes, now Place de la Nacion, Paris, on July 17, 1794.
The first head to be cut was that of Marie Genevieve Meunir, the youngest, named Sis. Constance, who mounted the steps calmly. Then, sang: “Praise the Lord, all you nations! Give glory all you peoples! The Lord’s love for us is strong; the Lord is faithful forever. Hallelujah.”
These are the lyrics in Psalm 117, which was sang at the foundation of a new Carmelite monastery, according to Wikipedia. The last to be guillotined was Madeleine Claudine Ledoine, Mo. Teresa of Saint Augustine, the prioress of the congregation.
De-Christianization of France
In 1790 a decree of the Revolutionary French Republic suppressed all religious communicaties, except those engaged in teaching and nursing. So, the convent of the Carmelite nuns in Compiègne should cease operation, according to Robert Ellsberg in All Saints.
This Reign of Terror had for it’s target the nobility and the church. The royalty vehemently opposed the government since it has to let go of its inherited privileges.
The church was included in the hate campaign because of its “alliance with aristocracy and its scandalous wealth.”
A “new revolutionary calendar without Sundays and feast day of saints” was designed, and religious congregations were abolished. In Wikipedia’s Reign of Terror added the following anti-Catholic church provisions: closing of churches, removal of the word saint to street names, destruction of religious monuments, outlawing of public and private worship and religious education, forced abjuration of priests of their religious vows, forced marriages of clergy and deportation or execution of clergyman and women.
Carmelite community until death
And then a discovery that 16 Carmelites continued their community life, “an illicit way of life—imprisoned in a former Visitation convent.”
Arrested in June 1794, they were convicted as “enemies of the people by conspiring against its sovereign rule” during the Reign of Terror. Their bodies were all brought to a common grave at Picpus Cemetery, where a cross was planted to mark the grave of 1,306 victims of death by guillotine. As the first martyrs of the French Terror, they were beatified in 1906 by Saint Pius X.
Reflecting on a difficult era the Catholic Church experienced, My First History of the Church said: “At the beginning the intention of the French Revolution was not to destroy the church but to reform her. Unfortunately, it developed into a full scale persecution that ignited the process of dechristianization throughout Europe. Probably it was a trial permitted by God to renew and purify the Catholic Church from corruption and wordly privileges.”
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.