First Massacre of Machecoul

First Massacre of Machecoul
Part of the War in the Vendée
19th century representation of the massacre
Date 11 March 1793 Location Machecoul, Loire-Atlantique Result Vendéen victory
Belligerents
French Republic	Vendéens
Commanders and leaders
† Louis-Charles-César Maupassant  † Pierre-Claude Ferré	René Souchu
Strength
100 National Guardsmen 10 Gendarmes	4000–6000 men and women
Casualties and losses
about 200 killed	4 killed

Coordinates: 46°59′38.04″N 1°49′18.12″W / 46.9939000°N 1.8217000°W / 46.9939000; -1.8217000

The Machecoul massacre is one of the first events of the War in the Vendée, a revolt against mass conscription and the civil constitution of the clergy. The first massacre took place on 11 March 1793, in the provincial city of Machecoul, in the district of the lower Loire. The city was a thriving center of grain trade; most of the victims were administrators, merchants and citizens of the city.

Although the Machecoul massacre, and others that followed it, are often viewed (variously) as a royalist revolt, or a counter-revolution, twenty-first century historians generally agree that Vendee revolt was a complicated popular event brought on by anti-clericalism of the Revolution, mass conscription, and Jacobin anti-federalism. In the geographic area south of the Loire, resistance to recruitment was particularly intense, and much of this area also resented intrusion by partisans of the republic, called "blue coats", who brought with them new ideas about district and judicial organization, and who required reorganization of parishes with the so-called juring priests (those who had taken the civil oath). Consequently, the insurgency became a combination of many impulses, at which conscription and the organization of parishes led the list. The response to it was incredibly violent on both sides.

In 1791, two representatives on mission informed the National Convention of the disquieting condition of Vendée, and this news was quickly followed by the exposure of a royalist plot organized by the Marquis de la Rouerie. It was not until the social unrest combined with the external pressures from the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and the introduction of a levy of 300,000 on the whole of France, decreed by the National Convention in February 1793, that the region erupted.

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