Jean Chouan

Jean Chouan was the nom de guerre of the Frenchman, Jean Cottereau, who was born at Saint-Berthevin, near Laval, in the department of Mayenne on 30 October 1757 and died 18 July 1794 at Olivet, also in Mayenne. He was a counter-revolutionary, an insurrectionist, and a staunch royalist.

Of the four Cottereau brothers, — Jean, Pierre, François, and René, — Jean, the second-born, was the one called chouan ("the silent one") by their father. Others say his nickname came from an imitation of the call of the tawny owl (the chouette hulotte) he customarily used as a recognition signal. Less flatteringly, Jean's young comrades nicknamed him "the boy liar" (le Gars mentoux or le garçon menteur).

The 1926 film, Jean Chouan, starred as Chouan.

Much of the biographical material on Jean Chouan is based on the work of , in a work written in 1825 at the request of the king, Charles X, who ruled France from 1824 until 1830. Cépeaux is unapologetically a royalist partisan, and he presents a number of claims that may be unfounded. The story of Jean Chouan is, therefore, almost certainly, in large part, legendary. The persistence of the legend can be explained by the fact it has been continuously nourished by a small faction of Catholics and royalist-legitimists who have remained active up to the present day.

So, Chouan's role in history is, at best, questionable, and archives, even those belonging to aristocrats living in the region, indicate that he was completely unknown prior to the Bourbon restoration in 1814. One thing is certain: the republicans, in their effort to quell the insurgency, contributed to the birth of the legend. The name, Jean Chouan, may, in fact, have been invented by republican authorities who were unable to name the true leaders of the insurrection against their own 1789 revolution, the revolution that had unseated the royal house of Bourbon in the first place.

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