Today is the feast of the Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne, France, who were put to death during the French Revolution on this day in the year 1794AD at the tail end of the Reign of Terror.
These blessed Carmelite martyrs were executed for their faithfulness to the Catholic Faith and their religious vows in the face of the demonic and militantly secularist French Revolutionary government of the Reign of Terror.
God chooses the weak, and makes them strong. These little sisters were not broken by the fury and malice of that Revolution.
How moving the last words of these holy souls, as Father Zuhlsdorf relates on his blog:
"As the Carmelite nuns, aged 30 to 78, went to the razor, they renewed their vows and sang the either the Salve Regina or the Veni Creator Spiritus, accounts vary.
One by one they knelt before the prioress and asked permission to die.
'Permission to die, Mother?'
'Go, my daughter!'"Fr. Z's Blog: 17 July 1794: “Mother, permission to die?”
Their names:
- Blessed Angelique Roussel
- Blessed Anne Pelras
- Blessed Anne-Marie-Madeleine Thouret
- Blessed Catherine Soiron
- Blessed Élisabeth-Julitte Vérolot
- Blessed Marie Dufour
- Blessed Marie Hanniset
- Blessed Marie-Anne Piedcourt
- Blessed Marie-Anne-Françoise Brideau
- Blessed Marie-Claude-Cyprienne Brard
- Blessed Marie-Françoise de Croissy
- Blessed Marie-Gabrielle Trezel
- Blessed Marie-Geneviève Meunier
- Blessed Marie-Madeleine-Claudine Lidoine
- Blessed Rose-Chretien de Neuville
- Blessed Thérèse Soiron
They were beatified in 1906 by Pope St. Pius X.
For more:
Catholic Saints Info: Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne
Old Catholic Encyclopedia: Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne
The Martyrs of Compiegne by Newkirk
Their story was made into a novella, in 1931, by Gertrude von le Fort, entitle The Song at the Scaffold; a liberetto by Georges Bernanos; and based on the Bernanos text, an Opera by Francis Poulenc, Dialogues of the Carmelites in 1957.
The closing scene of the Opera by Poulenc -- the execution of the sisters -- is moving, indeed. They sing a haunting version of the Salve Regina as, one by one, they are guillotined. There is some introduction before the sound of the guillotine begins -- and it is heart wrenching to hear the voices dwindle to one, and then none:
Live well!
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