[DE LA CATHELINIERE LOUIS-FRANCOIS RIPAULT]: (1768-1794) French military officer who participated in the War in the Vendee alongside the Royalist soldier Francois de Charette and who was guillotined in Nantes at the age of 25. An interesting D.S. by four politicians of the French Revolution, each members of the National Convention, comprising Marie Pierre Adrien Francastel (1761-1831), Pierre-Anselme Garrau (1762-1819), Nicolas Hentz (1768-1830) and Pierre Louis Prieur (1756-1827), four pages, folio, Nantes, 2^nd March 1794, in French. The manuscript document is a certified copy of the interrogation given to Ripault de la Catheliniere, detailing the background to his military service, in part, 'noble, age de 25 ans, ne a Frossay....precedemment lieutenant de navire marchand....pris les armes contre la republique le 12 mars 1793.....il commandait environ dix mille hommes tires des 23 paroisses....Il tenait ordinairement poste au port St Pere avec 600 hommes.....le reste de ses troupes restait dans ses foyers et pouvait se reunir en trois heures....les signaux ordinaires etaient un coup de canon, les moulins a vent et il employait quelques fois des courriers' (Translation: 'nobleman, 25 years old, born in Frossay….previously a lieutenant in a merchant ship….took up arms against the Republic on 12^th March 1793…..he commanded about ten thousand men drawn from 23 parishes…..He ordinarily held post at St. Pere port with 600 men…..the rest of his troops remained in their homes and could assemble in three hours…..the usual signals were a cannon shot, the windmills, and he sometimes used courriers') and continuing to refer to the arming of his men, the fighting, his wounding and the dispersal of his army and cavalry 'qu'il croit reunie a Charette, il y avait.....plusieurs allemands, quelques negre et plusieurs mulatres. Il a declare qu'il combattait pour le retablissement de la royaute et de l'ancien clerge.....qu'il imaginait qu'il se trouverait par la environ cinquante mille hommes.....qu'il y a deux ou trois mois seulement il avait eu un entretien avec Charette.....que le but des Chefs des Rebelles en passant la Loire et dans leur attaque de Granville etait de se joindre aux Emigres....que ces grandes mesures etaient dirigees par l'Elbee' (Translation: 'whom he believes reunited with Charette, there were…..several Germans, a few negroes and several mulattoes. He declared that he was fighting for the restoration of royalty and the old clergy…..that he imagined there would be about fifty thousand men there…..that only two or three months ago he had an interview with Charette…..that the object of the Chiefs of the Rebels in crossing the Loire and in their attack on Granville was to join the emigrants…..that these great measures were directed by the Elbee' ) and also adding that he was well informed of what was happening in Nantes where he used black women, children and men as spies. A document of significant historical content not only regarding Ripault de la Catheliniere himself, but also the counter-revolution in Vendee. A couple of very small areas of paper loss and a minor, neat split at the foot of the central vertical fold, otherwise VG