Chouans

Chouans, the name applied to the royalist insurgents who, during the French Revolution, organised a reactionary movement in Brittany. The name may very probably be due to a corruption of chat-huant ('screech-owl'), from the nocturnal habits of the bands or from some special call of recognition they may have had; or it may have originated in a nickname of the instigator of this insurrection, one Jean Cottreau, a smuggler of noted sagacity and courage. In the year 1792 they began to wage a small guerilla warfare with some success, but the Chouanerie, as the insurrection was called, at first disgraced itself by drunken license and cruelty. After Cottreau's death in 1794 in a scuffle near the wood of Misdon, the theatre of his first efforts, the brave adventurer Désoteux, surnamed Cormatin, took the lead; but after his capture there arose new leaders who extended the insurrection and lifted its aims into the region of the heroic. Georges Cadoudal and Charette soon had under their command a force of 10,000 fearless men, and their energy and daring actually imperilled for a time the security of the republican government in France. But stubborn and strong as was the old unquestioning loyalty of Brittany, it could not withstand the fiery enthusiasm that impelled the conquering legions of the giant young republic across almost the whole continent of Europe. The insurrection was stamped out by La Hoche; its leaders Vienville and Sérent fell, Scépeaux and Cadoudal were forced to lay down their arms, Frotté fled to England and Puisaye to America. A new attempt in 1799 was soon mercilessly crushed, and henceforward Chouanerie could only smoulder on in secrecy. In 1814–15 it again made its appearance on both banks of the Loire; and after the July revolution (1830) was once more excited by the Duchess of Berri on behalf of the Duke of Bordeaux, but crushed by the energetic measures taken by Thiers.