Chouans

Name given to a band of smugglers who rebelled during the French Revolution and joined the Royalists in the Wars of the Vendée.

Led by Jean Cottereau (1757-1794), they grew into an army known as La Petite Vendée. Cottereau was killed in an ambuscade, and his place was taken by Georges Cadoudal (1771-1804). The insurrection then spread through Brittany and the west of France. They were finally beaten by the revolutionary forces under Lazare Hoche at Quiberon, Brittany, in 1795.

Cadoudal was imprisoned but escaped, and, though open warfare was now impossible, he continued plotting; he was arrested and executed in Paris in 1804, with several others, but the movement was not finally suppressed until 1815.