Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne
Departement de la Vendée
Pays de la Loire France |
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Cemetery notes and/or description:
The Mémorial de la Vendée was erected in 1993 in honor of the 564 Vendéens, including 110 children under the age of 7 and their parish priest Abbe Voyneau, who were massacred by the French Republican colonnes infernales (infernal columns) on February 28, 1794 at the height of the French Revolution and to commemorate the bicentenary of the start of the Wars of the Vendée. The Vendéens were killed as they knelt in prayer at a hilltop chapel at Petit Luc. The 110 children who were martyred in odium fidei (literally meaning "in hatred of the faith") are currently in the process of being canonized as saints of the Roman Catholic Church.
The chapel was rebuilt in 1867 using the original stones and now serves as the chapel of remembrance for the wars. The names of all those who were massacred are inscribed on marble slabs inside the chapel except for the priest who has a separate stone column a short distance from the chapel itself.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn gave the address on the day of the public opening of the memorial, which lies at the foot of a small hill which is topped by the chapel of Petit Lucs. The path leading up to the memorial has panels of some of the main figures involved, on the left side in the French language and on the right in English. A wooden bridge spans a moat leading into the state of the art memorial. |
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