The Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne

The Carmel of Compiègne was founded in 1641 from the monastery of Amiens. In 1794 its prioress was Mother Teresa of Saint Augustine, born Marie-Madeleine-Claudine Lidoine. The sixteen martyrs were eleven choir nuns, three lay sisters and two externs, the sisters Catherine and Thérèse Soiron, who served the community from outside the enclosure; the youngest was the novice Sister Constance Meunier. Around Easter 1792, at the prioress’s suggestion, the community offered itself to God so that peace might be restored to the Church and the State.

The sisters were forced out of their convent on September 14, 1792. They went on living in small groups in four houses in Compiègne, keeping their life of prayer in secret. After a search by the town’s surveillance committee they were arrested in June 1794, and in July they were taken to Paris and held in the Conciergerie. On the morning of July 17 the Revolutionary Tribunal, with no counsel for their defense, condemned them for fanaticism.

The same day carts took them to the Place du Trône-Renversé, today the Place de la Nation. On the way they sang the Miserere and the Salve Regina, and at the scaffold they sang the Veni Creator and renewed their vows. Sister Constance was called first and began Psalm 117, Laudate Dominum, which the others took up; each sister received the prioress’s blessing, and Mother Teresa died last. Their bodies were thrown into a common grave at Picpus, where 1,306 people executed in June and July 1794 lie. Robespierre went to the guillotine eleven days later.

Three members of the community were away at the time of the arrests. One of them, Sister Marie of the Incarnation, born Françoise-Geneviève Philippe, wrote the history of the martyrs, published in 1836.

Pope Pius X beatified them in Saint Peter’s Basilica on May 27, 1906; they were the first martyrs of the Revolution recognized by the Holy See. One of the cures examined for the beatification was that of a Carmelite lay sister of New Orleans in June 1897. On December 18, 2024, Pope Francis extended their cult to the universal Church and inscribed them among the saints by equipollent canonization. Masses of thanksgiving followed at Notre-Dame de Paris on September 13, 2025, and at the chapel of Picpus on September 14, 2025.

The Carmelites settled again in Compiègne, on the rue Saint-Lazare, in 1867, and in 1992 moved to Jonquières, about six miles away, where a memorial has a crypt with relics and a room showing objects and manuscripts of the martyrs. On April 21, 2026, the bishop of Beauvais announced the closing of this Carmel, its six remaining nuns to leave over the following months; the Friends of the Holy Carmelites of Compiègne hope to keep the crypt open to visitors. On July 17, 2025, a solemn Mass at Picpus was followed by a procession to the common graves. An American flag flies in the same cemetery over the tomb of Lafayette.

In the chapel of Picpus, marble plaques in the transepts list the names of the victims of the summer of 1794, the Carmelites among them. Their death inspired Gertrud von le Fort’s novella of 1931, the Dialogues des carmélites of Georges Bernanos and the opera of Francis Poulenc (1957), which the Metropolitan Opera in New York has staged since 1977.

• Paris, Picpus CemeteryThe cemetery at 35 rue de Picpus where their bodies lie in a common grave, with their names on plaques in the chapel; it opens in the afternoon, for a small fee.
• Paris, Place de la NationThe former Place du Trône-Renversé, where they were guillotined on July 17, 1794.
• Jonquières, the CarmelThe Carmel of Compiègne since 1992, with a memorial crypt holding relics; its closing was announced in April 2026, so ask before you go.
• CompiègneThe town where the community lived from its foundation in 1641 until the arrests of 1794.

On our ways: Compiègne.

• Via IoannaeJoan’s Way, eight days