Captivity and Defiance: The Years of Mont-Saint-Michel

Abstract

THE OATH OF A POST-SAISONS SOCIETY, a fleeting effort to rebuild upon the debris left by the last insurrection, included the following passage: “Our brothers are dead, the victims of tyranny: the glorious task of avenging them and continuing their work is reserved to us…. Do you feel in yourself the courage to withstand prison in order to fulfill your duties as a citizen?”1 It was a foreshadowing, more perceptive than was realized by the young student who wrote it, of the future agony of the republican movement.