Perrine Dugué

Perrine Dugué (° April 24th 1777 the Menagerie Thorigné-in-Charnie - † March 22nd 1796 the cabin-Bréhin Saint-Jean-on-Erve), called the “tricolor Holy ”, the “republican Holy ”, “ Holy blue the ”, or “ the Holy one with the tricolor wings ”.

History

This young girl of Thorigné-in-Charnie (Mayenne), girl of Jean Dugué and Marie Fox, resulting from a family considered for her republican enthusiasm, was born with the farm from the Menagerie with Thorigné on April 24th 1777. The holy Tuesday 2 germinal Year IV (March 22nd 1796) - it lives then with the farm of the Pins on the road of Thorigné to Saint-Denis -, it goes, by the ways which cross the forest of the Charnie, at the market of Holy-Suzanne, with farm neighbors, of which Mr. Marteau, farmer with Babinière . She also hopes to return visit to her older brothers, Antoine and Jean, which joined the republican garrison of Holy-Suzanne after the fire by Chouans of the church of Thorigné.

Three chouans stops the group with the “Moor of Blandouet”, with the crossing of the ways active of Blandouet to Chammes and of Thorigné to Holy-Suzanne, near the oak of Évêts (or Évais ) which exists always nowadays; they reduce Perrine from horse, and return the farmers, of which the sieurs Marteau and Houtin . “ They forced the young girl to go down from horse and, on the observations of the sior Houtin, they answered this one which what they did did not look at it and incited it to go its way, or if not… ”.

the continuation of the history comprises two versions, one “political”, the other sordid one.

According to the ones, the chouans suppose Perrine carrying a message addressed by the patriots of Thorigné-in-Charnie to the republican guards of Holy-Suzanne, to which belongbelong two of his/her brothers. They thus suspect this young girl of hardly 19 years of being a spy. After having torn its clothing, they find the message in its shoes. They massacre it; it later is found failing three days. It is buried in the vicinity, and at the time when it is buried in the vicinity with the locality Giaisière , a woman approaching it “miraculeusement” is cured of an infirmity.

the other version, much more documented, reports that the three brigands lead the young girl close to the farm of Peloye where was the cabin in Cotereau . There, they want to misuse it and, on its resistance, assassinate it with blows of saber and crush it under the shoes of their horses. They leave it on the spot where it is found thirty hours after, still breathing, but close returning the last sigh, by one named Bréhin , probably Gabriel Bréhin, born with Livet towards 1757, domiciled with the Bouts of Moor to approximately 1200 m. “ This one and some neighbors even dug a pit at the place and descended the body there from the victim with all its clothing by means of two binders ”. The place known as “ the cabin with Cotereau ” (coincidence? the true name of Jean Chouan was Jean Cottereau), can be today only the farm known under the name of Cabin-Bréhin .

In the months which follow, the rumor of the “holiness” of Perrine Dugué and its capacities of cure, is spread. The miracles which are allotted to “ the holy one that one had seen assembling to the sky with tricolor wings ” (?!) start a true popular worship, which attracts thousands of pilgrims come to obtain the cure; this surge drains also travelling merchants (of candles, of vivres…) on its tomb.

Extracts from a letter of Miss Viroux of the Stone quarry of the July 23rd 1797: “ For six months, patriotism has put it at the number of the Holy ones. It makes, say, the every day of the miracles, so that it is a contest of people which go on his pit by troops often from thousand to fifteen hundreds, on all sides; they go there by car sometimes by more than twenty or thirty charged with estropiés provisions and people, as much of brain than of body; They carry all of the candles, they take ground and dislikes of wax and make balls, rub the body with, and lie down on the pit ”. “ the ground was covered with snow and it tomb was covered with flowers which one calls Candlemas (= snowdrop), and snow had not remained there”.

It is because of this surge of pilgrims on the tomb of Perrine that, thanks to their gifts and with that of a nearby farmer who provides the ground, one builds for it a vault near farm of High-Mancellière the (common of Saint-Jean-on-Erve). The worship declines then as quickly as it developed. This vault always exists close to the Holy-Suzanne road of Thorigné-in-Charnie with , maintained by the Roca-Dugué family. In front of the furnace bridge, the tomb stone carries the inscription: “ Ici is antaisre the body of citizen Perine Dugué of the commune of Torigny deceased the old on March 22nd, 1796 vs of 17 ass requiesca in pace ”.

Illustrations

Three images and three laments of the time bring back a version to us, which one knows today distorts, of the history, - but which was probably only, “politically correct”, known of the majority of the pilgrims -, by designating as culprits soldiers of the Republic:

Engraving on wood of Pierre-François Godard engraved with Alençon in 1796, for a popular edition of laments in the honor of Perrine Dugué, included in the book of Robert Triger Holy-Suzanne, its history and its fortifications , Historical and archaeological co. of Maine, 1907) and in the booklet of the Abbot Augustin Ceuneau a strange worship during the Revolution: Perrine Dugué, the Holy one with the tricolor wings, 1777-1796 . This engraving, preserved at the National museum of Arts and popular Traditions, represents the young girl with foreground, going with its basket. On its left is represented its murder by a hussard and on its line the cure of a patient who releases his crutches while shouting with the miracle, to the foot of a tomb of Perrine straight left imagination of the engraver.
Engraving of Gatekeeper, Mans: laments on the death of Perrine Dugué (coll Museums of Mans);
Engraving of Letourmy, Orleans: true lament on the death of Perrine Dugué (coll Museum of the Image, deposit of the MDAAC, Epinal).

The other known documents are, for the majority, resulting from private correspondences and inform especially about the “worship”. In a republican report/ratio, rather caricatural, one allots the murder to the blue . The death certificate does not inform about the circumstances of death, and this thin corpus is supplemented by the oral testimonys collected by the local ecclesiastics being interested in the business in the middle of the 19th century.

Epilog

a small handwritten notebook, entitled History of Perrine Dugué , was found in 2005 in the attic of a Holy-Suzanne house of , It was written the January 24th 1891 by Gervais Pômier, (former notary and associated with the mayor of the commune), then 87 years old, two months before its death. This drafting was caused by the redécouverte by Pômier of a preceding notebook written in 1856, whose ink started to be erased, and who reported the conversation which it had had itself with Guillaume Dergère (1784-1857), of Thorigné-in-Charnie, which, adolescent, had personally attended the exhumation of the body of Perrine at the time of its change of burial, eighteen months after its death.

This is why Gervais Pômier rewrites it all while adding there its own memories, related to becoming one of the assassins whom it names, as five verses of the lament that it “so often intended to sing”. The notebook in question is today deposited with the Musée of the audience to Holy-Suzanne. The Holy-Suzanne public school of , bears the name of Perrine Dugué. The communes of Holy-Suzanne, and Thorigné-in-Charnie gave its name to the one their streets.

To see

the oak of Évêts, with Chammes, locality the moor of Blandouet close to the crossroads of the roads of Thorigné-in-Charnie with Holy-Suzanne (D7), and of Blandouet to Chammes, in direction of Chammes.
the vault where Perrine Dugué rests: close to D7, High Mancellière , Saint-Jean-on-Erve closes. To visit it to address to the Museum audience with Holy-Suzanne. The vault always belongs to the family Dugué-Roca, descendants of the Dugué family.
the reconstitution of the scene of the murder of Perrine: Museum of the audience, Holy-Suzanne room Perrine Dugué, .
Country of Art and History Coëvrons-Mayenne

Assassins of Perrine Dugué

The canon Pichon reports that the farmers who accompanied Perrine until the meeting with the chouans, “ knew the three very well chouans ”. The mother of the canon who lived Vaiges showed him “ many time a poor house located on the edge of the pond of Vaiges, on the road of Vaiges to Laval, where still one of the chouans lived which stopped Perrine ”.

Gervais Pômier names two of the three culprits: Julien Broul Window bar and Yellowbelly .

“ Broul Petit-Bois which passed for guiltiest managed with Holy-Suzanne, under the Restoration, a shop tobacconist's of which it was titular. One often intended to sing in front of his door the lament of Perrine Dugué. Not easy to prevent some. Later, I saw it remaining in a very small cabin close to Devinière and the water Bit. Then it obtained an employment with the granting of Laval and it died there, not having never received since its crime but an evidence of contempt ”. Far from being put in charge, Julien Broul Petit-Bois will be favoured with the Restoration: only its past of chouan chief, as a lieutenant of the knight of Tercier (assistant under the name of Mr Charles with Taillefer , head of the division of Vaiges) seems officially known then, not its past of assassin… Having made to the new capacity the request for a pension or a place, one entrusts to Broul Petit-Bois the tobacconist's shop of Holy-Suzanne. The files of the tax authorities confirm what Pômier writes: a very bad reception of new tobacco dealer by the pro-republican population suzannaise, with the fact of its crime. The turnover of the tobacco shop of Holy-Suzanne knows a spectacular fall on its arrival and it must quickly leave the City. Its predecessor, Anjubault, will write: “ Since the new nomination at the office of Holy-Suzanne, the tobacco shop is prodigiously decreased… (...) It is very true that was to serve the interests of the sior Petit-Bois only to give him the office of Holy-Suzanne; (...) elsewhere perhaps, it had perhaps been happier… ”

Protected by their relations, profiting owing to the fact that the royalists did not wish, afterwards, to make the light on a crime that much still believed to be made by republicans, the criminals were not continued. It is not known if the General Claude-Augustin de Tercier (° 1752 - † 1823) was informed of the crime of his lieutenants, always is it that he did not impose any sanction. Just like the “worship” of Perrine Dugué is of origin popular, it is the people which finally punished his assassins by organizing their social exclusion.

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