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Sixteen Blessed Teresian Martyrs of
Compiègne
Guillotined at the Place du Trône
Renversé (now called Place de la Nation), Paris, 17 July,
1794. They are the first sufferers under the French Revolution on
whom the Holy See has passed judgment, and were solemnly beatified
27 May, 1906. Before their execution they knelt and chanted the
"Veni Creator", as at a profession, after which they all
renewed aloud their baptismal and religious vows. The novice was
executed first and the prioress last. Absolute silence prevailed
the whole time that the executions were proceeding. The heads and
bodies of the martyrs were interred in a deep sand-pit about
thirty feet square in a cemetery at Picpus. As this sand-pit was
the receptacle of the bodies of 1298 victims of the Revolution,
there seems to be no hope of their relics being recovered. Their
names are as follows:
Madeleine-Claudine Ledoine
(Mother Teresa of St. Augustine), prioress, b. in Paris, 22
Sept., 1752, professed 16 or 17 May, 1775;
Marie-Anne (or Antoinette)
Brideau (Mother St. Louis), sub-prioress, b. at Belfort, 7 Dec.,
1752, professed 3 Sept, 1771;
Marie-Anne Piedcourt (Sister of
Jesus Crucified), choir-nun, b. 1715, professed 1737; on mounting
the scaffold she said "I forgive you as heartily as I wish
God to forgive me";
Anne-Marie-Madeleine Thouret
(Sister Charlotte of the Resurrection), sacristan, b. at Mouy, 16
Sept., 1715, professed 19 Aug., 1740, twice sub-prioress in 1764
and 1778. Her portrait is reproduced opposite p. 2 of Miss
Willson's work cited below;
Marie-Françoise Gabrielle
de Croissy (Mother Henriette of Jesus), b. in Paris, 18 June,
1745, professed 22 Feb., 1764, prioress from 1779 to 1785;
Marie-Gabrielle Trézel
(Sister Teresa of St. Ignatius), choir-nun, b. at Compiègne,
4 April, 1743, professed 12 Dec., 1771;
Rose-Chrétien de la
Neuville, widow, choir-nun (Sister Julia Louisa of Jesus), b. at
Loreau (or Evreux), in 1741, professed probably in 1777;
Anne Petras (Sister Mary
Henrietta of Providence), choir-nun, b. at Cajarc (Lot), 17 June,
1760, professed 22 Oct., 1786.
Concerning Sister Euphrasia of
the Immaculate Conception accounts vary. Miss Willson says that
her name was Marie Claude Cyprienne Brard, and that she was born
12 May, 1736; Pierre, that her name was Catherine Charlotte
Brard, and that she was born 7 Sept., 1736. She was born at
Bourth, and professed in 1757;
Marie-Geneviève Meunier
(Sister Constance), novice, b. 28 May, 1765, or 1766, at St.
Denis, received the habit 16 Dec., 1788. She mounted the scaffold
singing "Laudate Dominum". In addition to the above,
three lay sisters suffered and two tourières. The
lay sisters are:
Angélique Roussel (Sister
Mary of the Holy Ghost), lay sister, b. at Fresnes, 4 August,
1742, professed 14 May, 1769;
Marie Dufour (Sister St.
Martha), lay sister, b. at Beaune, 1 or 2 Oct., 1742, entered the
community in 1772;
Julie or Juliette Vérolot
(Sister St. Francis Xavier), lay sister, b. at Laignes or
Lignières, 11 Jan., 1764, professed 12 Jan., 1789.
The two tourières, who
were not Carmelites at all, but merely servants of the nunnery
were: Catherine and Teresa Soiron, b. respectively on 2 Feb., 1742
and 23 Jan., 1748 at Compiègne, both of whom had been in
the service of the community since 1772.
The miracles proved during the
process of beatification were
The cure of Sister Clare of St.
Joseph, a Carmelite lay sister of New Orleans, when on the point
of death from cancer, in June, 1897;
The cure of the Abbé
Roussarie, of the seminary at Brive, when at the point of death,
7 March, 1897;
The cure of Sister St. Martha of
St. Joseph, a Carmelite lay Sister of Vans, of tuberculosis and
an abcess in the right leg, 1 Dec., 1897;
Five secondary relics are in the
possession of the Benedictines of Stanbrook, Worcestershire.
PIERRE, Les Seize
Carmélites de Compiègne (Paris, 1906); WILLSON,
The Martyrs of Compiègne (Westminster, 1907).
John B. Wainewright.
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