In March 1792, in the French region of the Vendée, bands of armed peasants led by gamekeepers, coopers, and cart drivers began to rise against the authorities of the revolutionary French government.
 The causes that led the local population to rebel against the Republicans were manifold.
 First and foremost was the discontent provoked by the increase in war taxes and the forced conscription of 300,000 men to serve in the army by the government in Paris. This was compounded by opposition to the deposition of King Louis XVI and to the centralising policies of the Parisian government, which stifled traditional local autonomies.
 Lastly, the revolutionary government’s ecclesiastical policies alienated the deeply Catholic local population. Church property had been confiscated, and clergy were required to swear allegiance to the new French constitution, creating a division between priests who complied (known as “jurors”) and those who refused (known as “non-jurors” or “refractory priests”).
Before long, the counter-revolutionary bands came to be led by former military officers, often nobles, and their numbers eventually swelled to approximately 80,000.
 The rebels’ military tactics relied mainly on guerrilla warfare, often taking the regular French army by surprise.
 Moreover, rebel forces operating along the English Channel received support from the British navy, which sought in every way to weaken the revolutionary French government.
Due to the deep ideological hatred on both sides, massacres and atrocities were committed by both factions.
 In towns and villages captured by the rebels, municipal officials and Republican sympathisers were often executed by firing squad.
 In response, the French army retaliated with the utmost severity.
 Repression involved the confiscation of grain and livestock, the deportation of civilians, and mass executions carried out by shooting and drowning.
 A great many people were sentenced to death on charges of sympathising or collaborating with those whom the Republicans referred to as “brigands.”
 Revolutionary authorities were particularly ruthless toward those they labelled as “fundamentalists”—often simple women who refused to attend Mass celebrated by juror priests and preferred the refractory ones, or clergy accused of having said Mass for the rebels.
Ultimately, the Republicans emerged victorious on the battlefield, and a preliminary peace agreement with the rebels was signed in 1795.
 From that moment on, the Vendée became synonymous with “counter-revolution.”