Rene Cottereau

Origin and family

Brother of Jean Chouan, he is the son of Pierre Cottereau says Chouan , Bûcheron, and of Jeanne Moyné , his wife. He inherited the nickname of Faraud .

Warning

Most of the biographies on Jean Chouan rests on the work of Jacques Duchemin of Cépeaux, work written in 1825, at the request of Charles X, work partisane and comprising many assertions, sometimes not-founded. The history of Jean Chouan thus comprises a great part of legend.

Before the French revolution

Rene Cottereau is with his brothers and his sisters in the sluice-gate truss of the Pear trees with Saint-Ouën-of-Roofs. His/her father dies in 1778 leaving his trade to elder, the three others became salt smugglers to survive.

He practices the False-salt making with his brothers Jean and François. Thus they know with others the recesses of the forest of the area, which enabled them later to escape Blue (soldiers republican S) in a rather effective way.

Chouannerie

He was married in 1792 with Jeanne Bridier. Rene, as his/her Pierre brother did not take any share with the organization of the Chouannerie. Decree with its wife and her older sister in 1793, then slackened on June 1st 1793. François and Rene Cottereau, with four as of theirs: the Rose , the Hope , the Hunter , and Without-Fear wanted to pass in the Vendée close to Varades and took part in a combat which devotes the August 29th 1793 to Rouxière.

Rene and Pierre entered only after the return to Saint-Ouën-of-Roofs of their Jean brother, which had followed the Vendéenne large army of Laval to Granville, and of Granville to the Mans, and after being themselves escaped of the prisons of Laval in 1794 where one had kept them for more than two months, culprits only, at this time, to have their brother with the head of the insurrectionists.

When it returned, it found its house plundered, and decided to take the weapons with ideas of revenge. Its family knows a tragic fate: his/her brother dies in 1794, another is guillotine, like his two sisters.

According to the denunciation of Jean Lemecier, village of Belair in Saint-Ouen, named Farau, otherwise Cottereau, said Chouan would have come at his place, the April 6th 1794, with four unknown companions, would have been made be used as force to drink, and to eat, adding that he wanted to kill a Blue the every day. .

He survived all the combat and the dangers.

He had remarié himself in 1806 with Renee Rivière and had 14 children. He one of the witnesses was often questioned of the various historians being interested in this period. Charles Gaspard Elisabeth Joseph de Bailly came the first to its assistance while returning of the emigration.

Restoration

Duchemin-Descépeaux had said in its first edition which Rene Cottereau had requested of the Restoration the patent of officer that she had refused to him. The fact was perhaps not completely exact, and Duchemin-Descépeaux cut off it from its second edition.

The Restoration strictly speaking did not confer ranks on old Vendean or Chouans; it was limited to recognize and confirm those which they had had in the war. Many requests were rejected, fault of the justification, difficult undoubtedly but necessary, of the pled rank. Thus Rene asserted that of captain in the 8th legion of the army of Maine

Rene was only one simple partisan, fighting readily for his own account. Nowhere, Duchemin Descépaux, so quite well informed however by the survivors and Rene himself, does not speak about occupied rank, command or direction exerted by him. His/her brother Jean, well differently distinguished, well differently loved and dreaded in the country, had never had behind him that very a small number of devoted men, even at the days of its greater authority

It receives Bourbons a pension of 400 francs. It did not obtain the Croix of Saint-Louis. Perhaps also character of the services of Rene Chouan, simple in favor, without command in title, and especially the acts of violence savage and of revenge that one reproached him with too much reason, compatible with a similar distinction was not guères. We saw, moreover, that he by had asked it.

It was presented to Dauphine the at the time of its passage to Laval, in 1827. It was occupied until its died (April 18th 1846) of its rustic work. “ It was an old man of high size, dryness, highly-strung person, with an aspect full with smoothness ”. But it carried behind the ear a ball, flattened on the bone and remained in the flesh, memory of an attempted murder made on its person, during a truce, through the closed door of its house.

Its portrait was drawn and published in the edition of 1833 of the Lettres on Chouannerie of Duchemin Descépeaux.

Claimed posterity

Like his brother, Jean Cottereau, Rene Cottereau were the object of an alleged posterity at the end of the 19th century. On this subject, its descendants, the Lelièvre ladies and Courcelle, little girls of Rene Chouan, had made announce in the Independent one of the West , in October 1879, that it was alone that were to address the people eager to obtain information on their family.

The origin is an article published in the National of September 1st 1879, under the signature Charles Flor O' Squarr. Its article, which belongs to a series entitled: the Tour de France in 80 days, aims to the photographic precision. It is dated from the Small estate of the Pear trees, August 30th. The author puts at it in scene Nicol Cottereau , grandson of Rene and great nephew of Jean. He seems to write so to speak under his dictation, and there is not almost a word in its account, which is not a historical untruth. One finds there in particular the account of a fictitious interview which would have taken place after the Restauration, between Rene Cottereau, the last survivor of the four brothers, and Louis XVIII.

Partial sources

;
Leon of Sicotière, Rene Chouan and his alleged posterity , Mamers, G. Fleury and A. Dangin, 1880, 18 p., (drawn-with-share of the Re-examined historical and archaeological of Maine ).

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