Feast day: July 17

The Martyrs of Compiègne

Martyrs · d. 1794

Patron of —

Sixteen Carmelite nuns of Compiègne guillotined during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, who went to the scaffold singing and renewing their vows, the youngest dying last.

The Martyrs of Compiègne were sixteen Carmelite nuns — and two faithful servants who chose to die with them — guillotined in Paris on 17 July 1794, at the height of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. They were the first of the Revolution's many victims to be formally beatified by the Church.

Their community at Compiègne had been forcibly dispersed when the revolutionary government suppressed religious life, but the nuns continued to live their Carmelite vocation in secret and in scattered lodgings. Moved by the bloodshed convulsing France, the prioress led them to make a daily offering of themselves to God as a sacrifice for peace and for the Church.

Arrested and condemned as 'enemies of the people' for the crime of living their religious vows, they were taken to the scaffold at the Place du Trône-Renversé. There they went to their deaths with serene courage, renewing their vows aloud and singing hymns — the 'Veni Creator' and psalms of praise — each kneeling before the prioress for a blessing before mounting the guillotine, the youngest first and the prioress last. Witnesses recorded the awed silence of the watching crowd.

Within days the Terror itself collapsed, and many have seen in their offering a sacrifice accepted. Beatified in 1906, they are remembered as witnesses to the power of faith and forgiveness in the face of revolutionary violence — a story that later inspired the opera 'Dialogues of the Carmelites.'

They mounted the guillotine one by one, each kneeling for the prioress's blessing and singing — and within ten days the Terror itself collapsed.

Image: John Salmon (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/14517a.htm