Carmelite Saints

Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegn

Memorial:  July 17

 

Also known as:  Sixteen Blessed Teresian Martyrs of Compiègne
Memorial:  17 July


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They are:

  1. Anne-Marie-Madeleine Thouret

  2. Anne Petras

  3. Marie-Geneviève Meunier

  4. Rose-Chrétien de la Neuville

  5. Euphrasia of the Immaculate Conception; aka Marie Claude Cyprienne Brard, or Catherine Charlotte Brard; born 1736 at Bourth, and professed in 1757

  6. Madeleine-Claudine Ledoine (Mother Teresa of St. Augustine), prioress, b. in Paris, 22 Sept., 1752, professed 16 or 17 May, 1775

  7. Marie-Anne (or Antoinette) Brideau (Mother St. Louis), sub-prioress, b. at Belfort, 7 Dec., 1752, professed 3 Sept, 1771

  8. Marie-Anne Piedcourt (Sister of Jesus Crucified), choir-nun, b. 1715, professed 1737; on mounting the scaffold she said "I forgive you as heartily as I wish God to forgive me"

  9. Marie-Antoniette or Anne Hanisset (Sister Teresa of the Holy Heart of Mary), b. at Rheims in 1740 or 1742, professed in 1764

  10. Marie-Françoise Gabrielle de Croissy (Mother Henriette of Jesus), b. in Paris, 18 June, 1745, professed 22 Feb., 1764, prioress from 1779 to 1785

  11. Marie-Gabrielle Trézel (Sister Teresa of St. Ignatius), choir-nun, b. at Compiègne, 4 April, 1743, professed 12 Dec., 1771

    There were also three lay sisters:

  12. Angélique Roussel (Sister Mary of the Holy Ghost), lay sister, b. at Fresnes, 4 August, 1742, professed 14 May, 1769

  13. Julie or Juliette Vérolot (Sister Saint Francis Xavier), lay sister, b. at Laignes or Lignières, 11 Jan., 1764, professed 12 Jan., 1789

  14. Marie Dufour (Sister Saint Martha), lay sister, b. at Beaune, 1 or 2 Oct., 1742, entered the community in 1772

    and two tourières, who were not Carmelites at all but servants at the nunnery:
     

  15. Catherine Soiron, born 2 February 1742 at Compiègne

  16. Teresa Soiron, born 23 January 1748 at Compiègne

    both of whom had been in the service of the community since 1772.

These sixteen are the first martyrs of the French Revolution that have been recognized.


Died:  guillotined on 17 July 1794 at the Place du Trône Renversé (modern Place de la Nation) in Paris, France Before their execution they knelt and chanted the "Veni Creator", as at a profession, after which they all renewed aloud their baptismal and religious vows. The heads and bodies of the martyrs were interred in a deep sand-pit about thirty feet square in a cemetery at Picpus. As this sand-pit was the receptacle of the bodies of 1298 victims of the Revolution, there seems to be no hope of their relics being recovered. Five secondary relics are in the possession of the Benedictines of Stanbrook, Worcestershire.


Beatified:  27 May 1906 by Pope Pius X. The miracles proved during the process of beatification were: 

  1. The cure of Sister Clare of Saint Joseph, a Carmelite lay sister of New Orleans, when on the point of death from cancer, in June 1897

  2. The cure of the Abbé Roussarie, of the seminary at Brive, when at the point of death, 7 March 1897

  3. The cure of Sister Saint Martha of Saint Joseph, a Carmelite lay Sister of Vans, of tuberculosis and an abcess in the right leg, 1 December 1897.

  4. The cure of Sister Saint Michael, a Franciscan of Montmorillon, 9 April 1898.

Canonization:  pending