the Four Sergeants of the La Rochelle are young French soldiers shown under the Restauration to have wanted to reverse monarchy and guillotines in 1822.

Plotters of freedom

Since 1821, under the Restoration, the 45 {{E}} regiment of infantry in garrison in Paris worries the military authorities and civil because of its bad spirit. In particular, the soldiers refuse to shout “Lives the King”. Also, in order to cut the regiment of the bad political influences (the barracks is located into full Latin Quarter with Paris where the dispute makes receipt among the students), it is transferred to La Rochelle in January 1822.

Like many soldiers hostile to the monarchical Restoration imposed by the victorious enemy, four young sergeants (Bories, Apple tree, Raoulx and Goubin, respectively old of 26,25,24 and twenty years) founded in their unit a division of the Charbonnerie, imported secret society of Italy and aiming at reversing restored monarchy. With the La Rochelle as in the capital, the conspirators intend well to continue their clandestine action. But somewhat imprudent by their remarks, the four companions are denounced.

For the example

They are translated into justice with a score of accomplices, but as they solemnly made of them to oath during their adhesion the principal defendants refuse to denounce their chiefs, in spite of pressures and promises of grace. They thus pay for the latter, the first of which figure celebrates it marquis of Fayette (1757-1834). For want of anything better, the prosecuting attorney is satisfied to evoke by transparent allusions these high ranking officials of the “Charbonnerie” who, in the shade, draw the strings from an insurrection from which they hope well to profit without taking risks:

“Where they are these lords who, in the insolence of their turbulent aristocracy, says to their servants: - Try for us the chances of an insurrection of which we are the shareholders! We will appear with the signal of your successes… If you succumb in a tumultuous aggression, we will set you up, with great noise, of the tombs! ”

After a lawsuit judged in advance, the four warrant officers are condemned to died and guillotines publicly in Place of Strike on September 21st 1822. Shown without proof and having taken part in no rebellion, they are regarded by the public opinion as “martyrs of freedom”. Romantic youth exalta the sacrifice of the young heroes and the opposition (republican, Bonapartist and orleanist) exploited this business against the government of the Restauration.

Martyrs of freedom

“Freedom Lives! ” shouted each of the four condemned while climbing on the scaffold. “You Recall that it is the blood of your sons that one makes run today! ” the elder one added: Jean-François Boriès.

With the means of the time, these last words were reflected soon by all the country. Laments and images will durably maintain the memory idealized the sacrificed young people, whose tragic and glorious destiny made of the popular heroes: republican saints to some extent. One will piously preserve the traces (some engravings testifying to their ideal) of their imprisonment: with the Tower of the La Rochelle (which will end up bearing their name), with Holy-Pelagie, then with Bicêtre. “With the Four Sergeants of the La Rochelle”: while thus renaming itself, of the Cabaret S will post their opinion. Anonymous hands will flower a long time the site of the Cimetière of Montparnasse where their skins were transferred in 1830, then solemnly honoured in 1848. A monument perpetuates there their memory (the 8th division), in edge of the way which bears the name of “Alley of the Sergeants of the La Rochelle”.

August 20th, 1863, the Parisian newspapers announce the death of a 72 year old woman, called the “old woman with the bouquet” because it always carries some pinned flowers to its scarf. The late one, one knows only that it fore-mentioned Francoise. Why grant an article to him? It is said that it was the good friend of one of the four sergeants of the La Rochelle. Before climbing on the scaffold, one of condemned (Boriès according to the ones, Raoulx according to the others) would have succeeded in sending a bouquet to him that, all its life, the inconsolable one promised in marriage renewed. Each day still specifies one, it did not fail to go to collect itself on the tomb of the Montparnasse cemetery, close to its residence.

Authentic history? The journalists, who copy one the other, do not try hard to inquire. At all events, the anecdote testifies to a fact: the perenniality of the memory of those who, in the popular memory, remain the heroic martyrs of freedom, four sergeants of the La Rochelle.

One half-century after the decapitation of the four young men, from the avengers will benefit from the disorders of the Commune to carry out the informer who had denounced his comrades to save his own head: a certain Aspergillum, former sergeant, who goes then over his eighty years.

Lastly, in May 1968, the students will judge good to honor fall it from those which, a hundred and forty six years earlier, were guillotines because of their combat for freedom…

More

• Pierre-Arnaud Lambert: Charbonnerie Frenchwoman, 1821-1823 (University Presses of Lyon, 1995)

• Bernard Morasin: They were 4 sergeants of the La Rochelle (Bordessoules editions, 1998)

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