For a certain left, the Terror remains an untouchable historical ZAD

Historian of the Revolution and the Empire, associate professor at the Catholic Institute for Higher Studies (ICES),

The deconstructors of the history of France, for whom there is in this case only a "novel", only an age-old intoxication or even a tool for the extreme right-winging of minds, never sleep, we know that .

The hunt for everything that General de Gaulle would have found “great, beautiful and generous” in our past must never stop.

And when the cinema produces a feature film that allows you to spit a little more in the national soup, the left-wing press (which believes itself to be the only one to have height and speak the truth) feasts and gargles with "courage" director or actor.

Far from cinematographic or aesthetic qualities and defects, there is no question of trying to sort out the wheat from the historical chaff: the film is necessarily a work that escapes critical examination and provokes

obligatory ecstasy.

Work of the mind, work of the artist because militant work… on the good side.

Read alsoVaincre or die: Puy du Fou recounts General Charette and the Vendée war for his first film

However, in this game of massacre in our history, there are still a few ZADs that are forbidden to be touched.

In contemporary history, with the Bolshevik revolution and the Popular Front, the Terror and its works are at the heart of this entrenched camp.

Here, valiant and grumpy defenders resist again and again criticism or recent research, when they do not deny facts established for ages.

They are few in number and rarely up to date, but as soon as prey presents itself they come out of the woods in packs and, in war as in war, will stop at nothing to preserve the area.

Even adversary of the Republicans, no one can deny François-Athanase Charette de La Contrie to have been one of the great leaders of Vendée during the uprising of this region in which he was almost dragged into his defending body.

Thierry Lentz

We had proof of this this week with the campaign led by the private and public media on the left against the film

, devoted to the Vendée wars and one of their “giants” (Napoleon

), Charette.

Even opponent of the Republicans, no one can deny François-Athanase Charette de La Contrie to have been one of the great Vendean leaders during the uprising of this region (larger than the current department) in which he was almost dragged to his body defendant.

Courageous and generous leader towards his adversaries, he was finally captured and shot by the "Blues".

It is this romantic epic that

tells .

Not enough to whip a cat you will say to me: war, love and a hero, enough to make a good film.

But there are several hiccups.

Read alsoPatrick Buisson: "The history of the Vendée war is of burning topicality"

The first is that the episode of the Wars of Vendée took place during the period of Terror, an area to be defended since it is that of Robespierre and Saint-Just.

Let us add that in this affair, there is nothing to glorify the Jacobin Republic, despite its victory.

Because once the “hot” war was over, the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety ordered a ruthless repression, with the systematic massacre of 120 to 150,000 men, women, children and old people.

Villages were razed, fields devastated, we shot, we guillotined, we drowned in the Loire, we crucified on barn doors, we immolated in churches (which reminds us of the painful memories of the Second World War).

It was what the revolutionary Gracchus Baboeuf called "populicide".

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is what some dare to call a “genocide”, provoking the high cries of the robespierrists.

Dealing with such a sensitive subject – is in itself an intolerable attack on the myth of the Revolution on the march, the only one that matters, that of the Jacobins.

This therefore justifies the rise of a few journalistic red guards, full of certainties and empty of basic knowledge of the episode.

Since there is Puy du Fou in the affair, the film is necessarily untruthful, basely political and subversive.

And the choir of red-green virgins to sing a song which, in their throat, rings false: let us defend the history of France, the true, the only one, the revolutionary!

Thierry Lentz

They feel all the more on a mission - here is our second problem - that the production company behind this small film with a 4 million budget is a subsidiary of Puy du Fou, the extraordinary historical and cultural park created by Philippe de Villiers and managed by his son Nicolas.

That's all it takes to cry out for the worst counter-revolution: for the zémmouri-lepenisation of minds.

Since there is Puy du Fou in the affair, the film is necessarily untruthful, basely political and subversive.

And the choir of red-green virgins to sing a song which, in their throat, rings false: let us defend the history of France, the true, the only one, the revolutionary!

We can thus read in a recent issue of

, elegantly titled "Le Puy du Fourbe", a heap of nonsense where historical error and gratuitous wickedness compete with the most unexpected woke arguments on such a subject.

A treat for the Insoumis and the Greens who made Robespierre their absolute hero (after having abandoned Trostky and Mao).

Their socialist feuds followed suit, while public radio, which had bent over backwards for the film

, acted as if

was a simple documentary lost in dark rooms and unworthy of the price of an entry.

Read alsoVaincre or die: Charette, a French hero

If the film, for lack of means, is not exempt from aesthetic criticism, if the choice to open it with contemporary interventions makes the whole thing a little unusual, we do not see why its theses - moreover acceptable for a historian - would have less citizenship than those of other cinematographic productions.

We should even rejoice that finally, French cinema is dealing with such a subject, if only to continue the discussion on these terrible and not very rosy wars and exactions of Vendée.

But the ZAD de la Terror, knowing its historically weak position, will never want to hear about it.

It's the only thing that's certain.