How Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity Benefitted the Carmelites

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

 

"I learned from a person who was a witness to their martyrdom that the youngest of these good Carmelites was called first and that she went to kneel before her venerable Superior, asked her blessing and permission to die. She then mounted the scaffold singing Laudate Dominum omnes gentes. She then went to place herself beneath the blade allowing the executioner to touch her. All the others did the same. The Venerable Mother was the last sacrificed. During the whole time, there was not a single drum-roll; but there reigned a profound silence."

- The Superior General of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers (1794) writing of the execution of sixteen Carmelite nuns by the French Republic

 

Carmelites Before the Scaffold