Françoise Gandriau (17 July 1775 – 7 March 1794), also called the , was a French teenager who was denounced as an and executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution. After her death, people claimed to witness miracles and unexplained healing, and her grave became a popular pilgrimage site in Lassay-les-Châteaux.
Biography
Françoise Gandriau was born in 1775 in Fontenay-le-Comte in an area of western France called the Vendée. Her father was a shoemaker, and she was one of 14 children in her family. She worked for a noble family, and, during the campaign in 1793, she followed her employer and the Catholic and Royal Armies across the Loire. Afterwards, she was separated from her employer and taken in by the former mayor of Lassay-les-Châteaux.
On 17 September 1793, at the start of the Reign of Terror period of the Revolution, the Law of Suspects passed and gave the authorities broad powers to prosecute suspected enemies of the Revolution, including . The following year on 2 February 1794, a juring priest who was hostile to the Vendean royalist rebels denounced Gandriau as an , and she was arrested. She was encouraged to claim she was pregnant in order to save herself, but she refused. She was condemned to death on 6 March by the "Clément" military commission and then executed by guillotine the following day, on 7 March 1794.
Legacy
After Gandriau's death, her grave was rumored to have miraculous healing powers and became a pilgrimage site. Mothers would bring their young children to her grave, hoping for a blessing that would make their children walk early. Also, children with difficulties walking were encouraged to circle her grave with their crutches and then lay the crutches down in the shape of a cross. A small chapel was built for Gandriau in a grazing field. She has been nicknamed the ().
In 2014, a requiem mass was held on the anniversary of Gandriau's execution.
See also Chouannerie Perrine Dugué – a teenager murdered by Chouans in Mayenne Tombe à la fille – "Sainte Pataude", a teenager murdered by Chouans in Brittany
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