Angélique was 22 years of age when the Revolution broke out. The risings which troubled Paris and the chief towns of France had little repercussion in the Breton villages. The rural districts were roused only after the promulgation of the Civil Constitution of Clergy, when the clergy who had remained faithful were persecuted and when juror priests were forced on the parishes. These juror priests were held in contempt and scoffingly called ‘les juroux’.[1] The parish priest of Saint-Jacut, M. Baron, was imprisoned at Port Louis and then deported to Spain for refusing to take the Oath. But in Saint-Jacut, as all over Brittany, faithful priests remained at their posts. Then began, for Angélique Le Sourd, a life of untiring devotion, often dangerous and sometimes heroic. Her house was always open to those priests fleeing before the Revolutionary troops, and it is thanks to her that several of them escaped either prison or death. With no thought of the risk she was running, she led them at night to the bedside of the dying and procured for them the means of celebrating Mass in safe places.
[1] )‘Juror’…‘Juroux’ refers to those priests who took (swore = jurer) the oath of allegiance to the State; hence the term ‘non-juring’ used several times in the following texts is applied to those who refused to take the oath, and who were therefore risking their lives for their Catholic belief and their commitment to serve their people.