The Sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne

The French Revolution reveals the titanic struggle between good and evil. During the terror, over 40,000 Frenchmen were executed just for holding fast to the Catholic Faith and objecting to the worst excesses of the Committee of Public Safety. The blood lost in the years of 1792-1794 staggers the imagination even in the retelling and the campaign against the Church was as diabolical as it was cruel.

Among these were the community of the Carmelite nuns of Compiegne, in northeastern France not far from Paris -- the fifty-third convent in France of the Carmelite sisters who followed the reform of St. Teresa of Avila, founded in 1641, noted throughout its history for fidelity and fervor. Their convent was raided in August 1790, all the property of the sisters was seized by the government, and they were forced to discard their habits and leave their house. They divided into four groups which found lodging in four different houses all near the same church in Compiegne, and for several years they were to a large extent able to continue their religious life in secret. But the intensified surveillance and searches of the "Great Terror"
revealed their secret, and in June 1794 most of them were arrested and imprisoned.

In that dream, the Sister saw the whole Community, with the exception of 2 or 3 Sisters, in glory and called to follow the Lamb. In the mind of the Prioress, this meant martyrdom and might well be a prophetic announcement of their fate.

Mother Teresa had said to her sisters: "Having meditated much on this subject, I have thought of making an act of consecration by which the Community would offer itself as a sacrifice to appease the anger of God, so that the divine peace of His Dear Son would be brought into the world, returned to the Church and the state." The sisters discussed her proposal and all agreed to it but the two oldest, who were hesitant. But when the news of the September massacres came, mingling glorious martyrdom with apostasy, these two sisters made their choice, joining their commitment to that of the rest of the community. All made their offering; it was to be accepted.

The original still exists, written in pencil and given to one of their fellow prisoners, a lay woman who survived.

Give over our hearts to joy, the day of glory has arrived, Far from us all weakness, seeing the standard come; We prepare for the victory, we all march to the true conquest, Under the flag of the dying God we run, we all seek the glory; Rekindle our ardor, our bodies are the Lord's, We climb, we climb the scaffold and give ourselves back to the Victor.

O happiness ever desired for Catholics of France, To follow the wondrous road Already marked out so often by the martyrs toward their suffering, After Jesus with the King, we show our faith to Christians, We adore a God of justice; as the fervent priest, the constant faithful, Seal, seal with all their blood faith in the dying God....

Holy Virgin, our model,
Sustain your children,
Submissive, obedient, dying, dying with Jesus and in our King believing.

"Citizen, it is your duty to respond to the request of one condemned; I call upon you to answer us and to tell us just what you mean by the word 'fanatic.'" "I mean,"
"Let us rejoice, my dear Mother and Sisters, in the joy of the Lord," said Sister Henriette, "that we shall die for our holy religion, our faith, our confidence in the Holy Roman Catholic Church."


They pardoned their executioners. One observer cried out: "Look at them and see if they do not have the air of angels! By my faith, if these women did not all go straight to Paradise, then no one is there!"

Sister Teresa, their prioress, requested and obtained permission to go last under the knife. The youngest, Sister Constance, went first. She climbed the steps of the guillotine "With the air of a queen going to receive her crown," singing Laudate Dominum omnes gentes, "all peoples praise the Lord." She placed her head in the position for death without allowing the executioner to touch her. Each sister followed her example, those remaining singing likewise with each, until only the prioress was left, holding in her hand a small figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The killing of each martyr required about two minutes. It was about eight o'clock in the evening, still bright at midsummer. During the whole time the profound silence of the crowd about the guillotine endured unbroken.

Two years before when the horror began, the Carmelite community at Compiegne had offered itself as a holocaust, that peace might be restored to France and the Church.
Years of war, oppression and persecution were yet to come, but the mass official killing in the public squares of Paris was about to end. The Cross had vanquished the guillotine.

These sixteen holy Carmelite nuns have all been beatified by our Holy Father, the Pope, [Pope St. Pius X, 27 May 1906] which is the last step before canonization.