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Louise de Grégo's gory treason

Northern façade | GO69 / CC-BY-SA
Castle French Revolution Revolt of the Chouans Treason Love story Lazare Hoche Trévarez castle

The pretty heiress

A story of treason in Trévarez? Ouch, yes! A lady from the castle, in love with general Hoche, betrayed her family.

She was marquise Louise du Grégo… Her family (a very old Breton lineage) owned the land of Trévarez since a long time.

So, when she married at the age of 15 viscount Antoine de Pontbellanger, a Norman, it was a great party…

Oh, Louise was so pretty! Her husband, for his part… was pretty ordinary: he let her completely indifferent!

So, when he decided to emigrate at the beginning of the French Revolution, she refused to follow him in London. She stayed in her Breton lands.

She stayed here with her mother and her son Charles. In the turmoil… in the middle of the war between Royalists (the Chouans, counter-revolutionaries in Western France) and republicans.

Lazare turned up!

In 1794, she met a man called Lazare Hoche, the man she loved more than anyone else… Hoche was proud and handsome, 27 years old.

He was a real heart-breaker! And Louise became his mistress! They became very intimate, he even nicknamed her “his little Lise”.

They met in a flash in Trévarez, between her trips in Nantes or in Vendée: she was royalist, he was republican.

Well, for her part, we don’t know really! They were lovers, but both mixed love and interests. Interests? Which one?

While Lazare protected her, she gave him informations about royalists’ movements in the area.

Emigrates in England prepared a landing on the Breton coasts, in Quiberon… among those emigrates, a man called Pontbellanger.

All alone

The landing ended in a bloodbath: emigrates who arrived in Quiberon were arrested and slaughtered.

Everyone. Pontbellanger included. Who informed Hoche about the landing, who? Some said Louise did, of course…

But all this blood soiled the love between Lazare and Louise, because, one fine day, he finally left Trévarez, Brittany and Louise.

She was all alone in the castle, a widow with a son. She was only 19 years old!

Her father emigrated too, she only had her mother who lived near Vannes, the land they were coming from. Louise went there, to find a little comfort.

But what she wanted was another man to protect her, to prevent people from taking her fortune and possessions.

She met one day one of Lazare’s friend, colonel Bonté. She married him and they moved in Trévarez, then they left for Paris. She finally died one winter day of 1826… and Bonté would remarried.

About the the author

Vinaigrette
I'm fond of strolls and History, with juicy and spicy details!