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Bonchamps, Marie Renée Marguerite de Scépeaux, marquise de

Marie Renée Marguerite de Scépeaux, marquise de Bonchamps

Born

5 September 1767

Died

22 November 1845

Married to Charles de Bonchamps in 1789, the marquise de Bonchamps followed her husband’s campaigns and nursed his wounds, and after his death at the crossing of the Loire in October 1793 went north with the army and both her children under La Rochejaquelein’s protection. Her son died of smallpox during the retreat; she hid her daughter with peasants and wandered in peasant dress until she was recognised at Ancenis and imprisoned at Nantes, where she was condemned to death. She was saved by a petition got up by a merchant who had been among the five thousand republican prisoners her husband ordered spared at Saint-Florent. Her memoirs, put into literary form by Madame de Genlis and published in 1823, are the account that made that episode famous. She died in Paris in 1845.

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The pardon of Bonchamps

Charles de Bonchamps was mortally wounded at Cholet in October 1793. Before his death, he ordered the release of thousands of Republican prisoners held at Saint-Florent-le-Vieil.