Summary:
As the French Revolution entered its worst days, sixteen Discalced Carmelites from the Monastery of the Incarnation in Compiègne offered their lives as a sacrifice to God, making reparation to him and imploring peace for the Church. On June 24th, 1794, they were arrested and thrown into prison. Their happiness and resignation were so evident that those around them were also encouraged to draw strength from God’s love. They were condemned to death for their fidelity to the Church and their religious life and for their devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Singing hymns and having renewed their vows before their superior, Teresa of St. Augustine, they were put to death in Paris on July 17, 1794. They were beatified by Pope St. Pius X on May 13, 1906. Their equipollent canonization was decreed on December 18, 2024.
History:
Madeleine-Claudine Lidoine was born and baptized in the parish of St. Sulpice in Paris. Her mother was 41 at the time of her birth, and she was an only child. Madeleine’s father worked at the Paris Observatory. Her parents provided her with a quality education, nurturing her artistic and poetic talents. However, after investing in her education, they lacked the funds for a dowry when she sought admission to Carmel.
The royal princess, Madame Louise, who had entered the Carmel of St. Denis and taken the name Sr. Teresa of St. Augustine, heard of Madeleine’s situation and asked to meet her. Recognizing her vocation, Sr. Teresa asked her nephew’s wife, the young Dauphine Marie Antoinette, to provide a dowry, which she did willingly. With this support, Madeleine entered the Carmel of Compiègne and took the name of her patroness, Sr. Teresa of St. Augustine. In 1786, at the age of 34, Sr. Teresa of St. Augustine was elected prioress and was re-elected in 1789.
In May 1789, the French Revolution erupted. The number of Christian martyrs surged in the revolution’s early years. Thousands died by guillotine, exile, drowning, imprisonment, shootings, or mob violence. Amid this, in January 1790, Mother Teresa received the vows of Sr. St. Francis Xavier, the last novice in Compiègne. Mother Teresa warned her of grave risks and urged her to reconsider. Sr. Xavier confidently replied that the Lord would protect her and went ahead with her vows.
A few months later, in July, the new French Republic issued the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which abolished all religious communities except those involved in teaching and nursing. Soon after the Bastille’s fall on August 4, 1790, officials with armed guards interrogated each sister at the Compiègne convent, forcing a choice between renouncing vows or facing punishment. Every sister declared her wish to remain a Carmelite and refused to abandon her life of obedience, chastity, and poverty. Seven, including Mother Teresa of St. Augustine, explicitly stated they wished to live and die as Carmelites. They remained in the convent as state wards. By the end of 1791, the revolutionary government required all clergy to swear a civic oath in support of the Civil Constitution.
Between June and September of 1792, amid increasing violence, Mother Teresa of St. Augustine invited her sisters to offer their lives to God as a sacrifice for peace between the Church and the State. Together, they decided to make this offering, adopting it as their daily prayer until martyrdom.
In August 1792, authorities ordered all women’s monasteries closed. On September 14, 1792, officials seized the convent. They removed the furnishings, and the nuns were forced to return to secular life. As planned, they split into small groups in nearby apartments and kept in frequent contact. They wore secular clothing and depended on friends’ charity. Despite these changes, they continued their spiritual routines. Mother Teresa encouraged a daily renewal of dedication for two years. Their Act of Consecration, offering themselves to God as a complete sacrifice, was made for peace in France. Mother Teresa believed love would ultimately prevail.
As the Reign of Terror worsened in 1793, the government searched the sisters’ apartments for two days and found letters showing their devotion to religious life. On June 24, 1794, they were arrested and taken to Paris, where they were jailed at the Conciergerie and brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Even in prison, the Carmelite sisters stayed calm and faithful, spending the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel together before their trial. On July 17, they were tried without lawyers. They were charged with being loyal to religious life, called "fanaticism," and for their devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The God-given strength of character of Mother Teresa of St. Augustine sustained her community through the difficult days of imprisonment and trial.
On the day of their sentencing, July 17, 1794, the sixteen Carmelite nuns were taken to the square on two carts for execution, a journey that took two hours. During that time, they sang hymns of praise—the Miserere, the Salve Regina, the Office of the Dead, vespers, and Compline. Onlookers berated them, hurling insults and throwing things at them.
Upon arriving at the Place du Trône, the nuns faced the guillotine. Mother Teresa led the Te Deum, followed by the Veni Creator Spiritus. The executioner, reluctantly carrying out his duty, allowed them to complete their devotions and permitted Mother Teresa to choose the order of execution. Sr. Constance, the novice prevented by anti-religious laws from making her profession, was able to pronounce her vows with the community and was the first to die. After she received a blessing and kissed a small terracotta Madonna and Child statue, she proceeded forth for execution. The other nuns followed suit. Finally, Mother Teresa made her own offering, kissed the statue, and pondered its fate. A woman in the crowd came forward to take it from her, ensuring its preservation, which is found today in the restored Carmel of Compiègne.
Large, hostile crowds often attended such executions. However, the serenity and composure of the nuns, who seemed to be simply renewing their vows instead of facing execution, deeply affected the spectators. As each nun approached the guillotine, the crowd’s taunts increasingly faded into silence. With the execution of Mother Teresa, the Act of Consecration made by the community was consummated.
Just ten days later, Robespierre was executed, and within two months, the Reign of Terror ended. French Catholics of the time believed that the executions of these nuns "helped bring about the end to the horrors of the revolution" and hastened the end of the Reign of Terror.
The nuns were buried in a common grave at Picpus cemetery with 1,306 others executed between June 13 and July 27, 1794. Today, their memory is honored with a plaque at the site.
Beatified by Pope St. Pius X on May 27, 1906, in St. Peter’s Basilica, the sixteen Carmelites became the first martyrs of the French Revolution recognized by the Holy See. On February 22, 2022, the Diocese of Beauvais announced Pope Francis accepted the procedure of equipollent canonization for the Martyrs of Compiègne. This would allow them to be canonized as saints, bypassing the judicial processes, formal attribution of miracles, and scientific examinations typically involved in the canonization of a saint. On December 18, 2024, Pope Francis canonized all sixteen martyrs.
The legacy of these Carmelite martyrs endured long after their deaths. Three sisters, absent at the time of arrest, survived. One, Sr. Marie de l'Incarnation, wrote an influential account of the execution, History of the Carmelite nuns of Compiègne, published in 1836. In 1931, Gertrud von Le Fort’s novella, The Song at the Scaffold, drew from this account, and Emmet Lavery adapted the novella as a 1949 play with the same name.
Raymond-Leopold Bruckberger and Philippe Agostini, inspired by Le Fort's novella, developed a film project that evolved into the stage drama Dialogues des Carmélites, which premiered in Zurich in 1951. The film project was later revived as Le Dialogue des Carmélites in 1960, with a new adaptation in 1984 for French television. Later, Francis Poulenc composed the opera Dialogues of the Carmelites. Most recently, in 2024, François Lespes released the documentary Blessed: The True Story of the Carmelites of Compiègne.
Prayer:
Lord God,
you called Saint Teresa of St. Augustine and her companions
to go on in the strength of the Holy Spirit
from the heights of Carmel to receive a martyr’s crown.
May our love too be so steadfast
that it will bring us
to the everlasting vision of your glory.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
List Martyrs:
The Martyrs of Compiègne consisted of 11 nuns, three lay sisters, and two externs (or tertiaries).

Comments