Chouan

Chouan

The four brothers Chouan , placed as of the beginning with the head of the insurrection counter-revolutionary of the Low-Maine, communicated this nickname with their comrades, and that, gradually, it ended up characterizing the insurrection, the very whole Chouannerie. The chouannery is a rising counter-revolutionary which set ablaze the campaigns of a dozen departments of the West of the France, in particular in Brittany and in the Maine, under the First Republic, in three phases, between spring 1794 and 1800.

Origin

Jean Chouan inherited, like all his/her other brothers, of the nickname of chouan (the silent one) of his/her father, negotiating in shoes and honourable man . It is thought that this nickname would be the fruit of a particular talent of imitation for the cry of the owl or the owl (" chouan" mean " hibou" in gallo).

The true cause which made call, of the singular name of chouans the soldiers of the royalist armies of the Maine, the Normandy and the Brittany is without null doubts the participation in the riot of Saint-Ouën-of-Roofs, the August 15th 1792 in which, with others, Jean and Rene Cottereau took part.

They were announced to the authorities Laval loises.

The only reason is that the family members Cottereau for a long time carried this nickname of Chouan (in patois cat-hooting , or chouin , local name of the tawny owl), according to the ones, because their grandfather was naturally sad and silent, according to others, because by making the smuggling of salt, they counterfeited the cry of cat-hooting to inform themselves and recognize themselves.

Propagation

The opinion of some historians and in particular of the Abbot Paulouin, writing on the theater of the insurrection, goes until saying that “ the insurrectionists of the the Sarthe had not received the nickname of Chouans, but had given it to themselves, as of their beginning in the career of resistance. ”

Historians of the 19th century, Savary; Lequinio; the author of the Memories of an Administrator of the Republican armies in the Vendée ; Puisaye especially, better well informed than anybody, since he was the supreme leader of Chouannerie, affirms that the Chouan brothers gave their name to the insurrection which they had organized the first.

A curious escutcheon, carrying the weapons of France and for support two owls, with this double currency: at the head, IN SAPIENTIA ROBUR , and with bottom, SIC REFLORESCENT , which one finds on some emanated publications of the royalist Agences of England , in particular on the frontispiece of the Royalist Almanac for the year 1795, third of the reign of Louis XVII, with Nantes (London) and is in all the cities of the Brittany, the Normandy, the Poitou, the Maine, the Perche, the Anjou, etc, and soon in all the France , MANDELEVIUM DC XCV, in-8, seems to contain a kind of official dedication of the bird of darkness, which is also that of Minerve , like emblem of Chouannerie.

See too

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