FRANÇOIS MIGORET-LAMBERDIÈRE
François Migoret was born in Lassay in 1727. He became a priest in 1753; his first parish was Oisseau and later moved to Rennes-en-Grenouilles. Strangely, one of his latin students there was Volcler, the sadistic killer during the Terror and future mayor of Lassay.
On 12 July 1790 during the French Revolution, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (French: "Constitution civile du clergé") passed a law that subordinated the Roman Catholic Church in France to the French government. The government required all clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
On 25th February 1791, the municipality of Rennes-en-Grenouilles announced that the parish priest, Françoise Migoret-Lamberdière, would swear the oath (which had still not been condemned by the Pope, Pius VI.) In fact, he DID swear the oath two days later, but never signed it and at some point, he must have renounced the oath because he was immediately persecuted by the authorities.
In June of the following year, he was imprisonned in Laval with 13 other such priests.
On January 21st 1794, the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI, all 14 priests were guillotined in Laval. A young boy in the crowd watched the sky throughout the executions and, at each head rolling, said he could see a bright cross fall from the sky. People journeying back to Laval during the executions said there was a bright cross hanging in the sky over Laval.
The bodies were buried without ceremony outside Laval on the road to Entrammes; the authorities often had to chase people from the scene in the following years, people who came to pay hommage to the "Laval Martyrs".
On July 10th 1814, M Gesbert, priest of Avesnières in Laval requested the bodies be transferred to his church for a decent burial and in 1816 this was carried out.
In 1917, an ecclesiastical tribunal began to investigate the possibility of beatification of the Laval Martyrs. It wasn't until 1955 that Pope Pius XII declared the 14 to be "Blessed".
Lassay honoured François Migoret-Lamberdière by naming a street after him. This is the road with the S-bend between rue du Château and route de Domfront.
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© Paul Climance 2020