Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne () is a

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

in the

Vendée Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.

department in the Pays de la Loire

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...

in western

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

History

The site's origins date from the Gallo-Roman period. According to the etymology, the name Lucus meant "Sacred Wood". This implantation is thought to have been an important religious site among local Celtic populations. A stone altar from this period that would have served for a Druidic cult has also been found at Motte du Petit-Luc. The Lucs-on-Boulogne is famous for the massacre of its population, according to some historians on 28 February 1794, by the

infernal columns The infernal columns ( French: ''colonnes infernales'') were operations led by the French Revolutionary general Louis Marie Turreau in the War in the Vendée, after the failure of the Royalist Virée de Galerne. Following the passage on 1 Aug ...

during the Wars of the Vendée. The mortuary plates of the chapel of Petit Luc bear the names of 564 people massacred on this occasion. On the occasion of his inauguration, Alexander Solzhenitsyn made a speech in which he drew a parallel between the spirit that animated the politicians applying

the Terror The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, ...

and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regu ...

. A law dated June 18, 1861 allocates part of the territory of the commune of Lucs-sur-Boulogne to Legé, in the Loire-Inferior, modifying the limits of the departments.

History

See also