Skip to content
Chouannerie
EntityQ249960· pop 20· linked from 775 articles

Chouannerie

Sign in to save

Also known as Chouans

The Chouannerie (; from the Chouan brothers, two of its leaders) was a royalist uprising or counter-revolution in twelve of the western départements of France, particularly in the provinces of Brittany and Maine, against the First Republic during the French Revolution. It played out in three phases and lasted from spring 1794 to 1800. The revolt was comparable to the War in the Vendée, which took place in the Vendée region.

Key facts

Military conflict.partof
French Revolutionary Wars
Military conflict.date
1793–1800
Military conflict.place
Brittany, Maine, Normandy
Military conflict.result
Inconclusive French republican forces were unable to defeat the Chouans militarily, Chouans ceased fighting after peace agreements in 1796 and 1800
Military conflict.image
File:DéfenseRochefort-en-terre2.jpg
Military conflict.caption
The defence of Rochefort-en-Terre, painting by Alexandre Bloch, 1885
Military conflict.combatant1
French Republic
Military conflict.combatant2
Chouans Émigrés
Military conflict.strength1
Army of the West:1795: 68,000 men1799: 45,000 men1800: 75,000 men
Military conflict.strength2
1795–1800: ~55,000 men
Military conflict.commander1
Jean-Baptiste de CanclauxJean-Michel BeysserJean Antoine RossignolJean-Baptiste KléberLazare HocheJean HumbertGuillaume BruneGabriel d'HédouvillePierre QuantinClaude Ursule Gency
Military conflict.commander2
Georges CadoudalJoseph de PuisayeJean ChouanMarie Paul de ScépeauxAimé du BoisguyLouis de FrottéPierre GuillemotAmateur de BoishardyComte Louis de RosmorducLouis de BourmontLouis d'AndignéPierre-Mathurin MercierJean-Louis TretonGuillaume Le Métayer Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouërie

via Wikipedia infobox

~19 min read

Encyclopedic overview

13 sections
Contents
  • Origins
  • Uprising
  • First phase 1794–1795
  • Second phase 1795–1796
  • Third phase
  • Leaders
  • In popular culture
  • Bibliography
  • Historical
  • Works of fiction
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

The Chouannerie (; from the Chouan brothers, two of its leaders) was a royalist uprising or counter-revolution in twelve of the western départements of France, particularly in the provinces of Brittany and Maine, against the First Republic during the French Revolution. It played out in three phases and lasted from spring 1794 to 1800. The revolt was comparable to the War in the Vendée, which took place in the Vendée region.

The uprising was provoked principally by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790), which attempted to impose Caesaropapism upon the Catholic Church in France, and the mass conscription, or levée en masse (1793), which was decided by the National Convention. A first attempt at staging an uprising was carried out by the Association bretonne to defend the French monarchy and reinstate the devolved government, specific laws, and customs of Duchy of Brittany, which had all been repealed in 1789. The first confrontations broke out in 1792 and developed in stages into a peasant revolt, guerrilla warfare and finally full-scale battles. It ended only after Chouan leaders accepted the treaties of Montfaucon and Beauregard in 1800.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Chouannerie” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (6)