Louis Mandrin

Louis Mandrin, born february 11 1725 at Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, died on may 26 1755 at Valence was a famous French « brigand » from Dauphiné of the eighteenth century.

Biography

Son of François-Antoine Mandrin, a merchant at Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, and elder of nine children, he becomes head of the family at 17, upon his father's death. His family was honorable and well established, but declining and less well to do than at earlier times.

His first contact with the Ferme générale (except for ordinary and mandatory tax paying) happens in 1748, a contract to send supplies to the French armies in Italy on « 100 mules less 3 ». It happens that he lost most of his animals on the way back to Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, during the crossing of the Alps. He only had 17 beasts left on arrival, and they were in an extremely sorry state. The Ferme générale refused to pay him.

On july 27 1753, following a brawl where his opponent was killed, Louis Mandrin and his friend Benoît Brissaud are sentenced to death. Mandrin flees, but Brissaud is hanged on Breuil square in Grenoble. On the same day, his brother Pierre Mandrin is hanged for coining. He then declares war on the Ferme générale's tax collectors.

At the time the farmers general were thoroughly despised by the population. They collected taxes for the king, mostly indirect taxes on commercial goods (the most infamous of which being the gabelle, a tax on salt, but many other goods, such as tobacco were very heavily taxed). the tax farming system in force at the time caused massive abuse. The farmers general were getting obscenely wealthy for, while they levied as much money as they could, they paid the royal coffers only a pre agreed amount, that could be as low as a mere quarter of the taxes actually collected.

Mandrin became part of a band of smugglers operating between the Swiss Cantons, Geneva, France and Savoy, which was then a sovereign state, mostly trafficking tobacco. He rapidly rose to be chief of the group. He then was a the head of 300 men and organised his band as a true military regiment. He installed his weapons and goods storehouses in Savoy (then a duchy that was part of the kingdom of Sardinia), and believed himself out of the reach of French authorities. During the year 1754 he organised six military style campaigns. Targeting only the unpopular farmer generals, he rapidly got support from the mass of the local people.

He bought goods (cloth, hides, tobacco, canvas and spices) in Switzerland, which he then resold in French towns without paying the Ferme Générale any of the owed taxes. The population was delighted with such bargains. Soon, ordinances were passed, forbidding the buying of his smuggled goods. But in Rodez, he made a show of provocation by forcing Ferme Générale employees to buy his goods at gunpoint.

The Ferme générale, exasperated by this « bandit » whose popularity was ever growing, obtained help from the Royal Army in trying to stop him. He still managed to take refuge in Savoy, near Pont-de-Beauvoisin. The farmer generals then decided to enter the Duchy illegally by disguising 500 men as peasants. They seized Mandrin at the fortified farm of Rochefort-en-Novalaise thanks to the betrayal of two of his men. When King Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia learned of the intrusion on his territory, he demanded from Louis XV that the prisoner be turned over to him , to which the French King agreed. However, the farmers general, anxious to be rid of Mandrin for good, hurried his trial and execution. He was tried on may 24 1755, then broken on the wheel in Valence on may 26, in front of formatnum:6000 onlookers, and endured the torture without a cry. After 8 minutes, he was strangled to put an end to his suffering.

The man was dead, but the wrong righting bandit's legend was just beginning. His struggle against the injustice of Ancien Régime taxes was sung throughout France by a ballad that is still known today, the "Complainte de Mandrin", whose authors remain unknown.

Extremely popular during his life, Mandrin remains very famous today still in his native Dauphiné, in Savoie, and, to a lesser degree, in the rest of France.

La complainte de Mandrin (Mandrin's Lament)

This ballad, dated 1755, is excerpted from an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, composed in 1733 : "Hippolyte et Aricie". It was then covered anonymously under the title by which it is still known. The text was also published as an appendix to a book titled "Précis de la vie de Louis Mandrin" "(Treatise on the Life of Louis Mandrin)" .

Original French

::(Chorus)

Nous étions vingt ou trente,
Brigands dans une bande,
Tous habillés de blanc,
À la mode des...
Vous m'entendez ?
Tous habillés de blanc
A la mode des marchands.

La première volerie
Que je fis dans ma vie
C'est d'avoir goupillé,
La bourse d'un...
Vous m'entendez ?
C'est d'avoir goupillé
La bourse d'un curé.

J'entrai dedans sa chambre
Mon Dieu, qu'elle était grande !
J'y trouvai mille écus,
Je mis la main...
Vous m'entendez ?
J'y trouvai mille écus,
Je mis la main dessus. J'entrai dedans une autre,
Mon Dieu, qu'elle était haute !
De robes et de manteaux
J'en chargeai trois...
Vous m'entendez ?
De robes et de manteaux,
J'en chargeai trois chariots.

Je les portai pour vendre
À la foire en Hollande.
J' les vendis bon marché,
Ils n' m'avaient rien...
Vous m'entendez ?
J' les vendis bon marché,
Ils n' m'avaient rien coûté.

Ces Messieurs de Grenoble
Avec leurs longues robes,
Et leurs bonnets carrés,
M'eurent bientôt...
Vous m'entendez ?
Et leurs bonnets carrés
M'eurent bientôt jugé. Ils m'ont jugé à pendre,
Ah ! c'est dur à entendre !
À pendre et étrangler,
Sur la place du...
Vous m'entendez ?
À pendre et étrangler,
Sur la place du Marché.

Monté sur la potence
Je regardai la France,
J'y vis mes compagnons,
À l'ombre d'un...
Vous m'entendez ?
J'y vis mes compagnons,
À l'ombre d'un buisson.

Compagnons de misère,
Allez dire à ma mère,
Qu'elle ne me reverra plus,
Je suis un enfant...
Vous m'entendez ?
Qu'elle ne me reverra plus,
Je suis un enfant perdu !

English translation

We were 20 or 30
brigands in the same band
All clad in white
in the way of
do you hear?
All clad in white
in the fashion of merchants

The first Thievery
I ever did in my life
was to lift
The purse of a
Do you hear me?
It was to lift
The purse off a priest.

I went into his room.
My God how big it was !
I found there 1000 sovereigns
and I took'em
Do you hear me?
I found there 1000 sovereigns
and I took all of them .

I entered one more,
My God how it was tall.
Of robes and coats
I loaded three
Do you hear me,
With stolen robes and coats
I loaded three chariots.

I took them for two sell
In Holland at the fair.
I sold them cheaply
They hadn't cost
Do you hear me?
I sold them cheaply
They hadn't cost me a penny.

The Judges at Grenoble,
all swaddled in their robes,
and with their square hats
They soon had me,
Do you hear me?
They soon had me sentenced.

Sentenced me to hang
Oh that's hard to bear,
to be hanged and strangled,
in the market
Do you hear me?
to be hanged and strangled
in the market square.

From atop the Gallows
I looked over France,
and saw my companions
in the shade of
Do you hear me?
And saw my companions
in the shade of a bush.

Fellows in my misery,
Please go tell my Mammy,
She won't see me any more,
I am lost
Do you hear me?
I'm a lost child.me,

Mandrin in popular (French) culture

Mandrin in cinema

* 1948 : "Mandrin, 1st period : The Liberator" by Claude Dolbert.
* 1948 : "Mandrin, 2nd period : Tragedy of a century" by Claude Dolbert.
* 1962 : "Mandrin, gentleman robber" by Jean-Paul Le Chanois from a book by Arthur Bernède.

Mandrin on the TV

* 1971 : Series in 6 episodes : "Mandrin, bandit of honour"

Bières Mandrin

Since 2002, the famous « brigand » lends his name to a walnut flavored beer brewed in Grenoble. Today, the " [http://www.mandrin.biz Brasserie artisanale du Dauphiné] " makes 6 different beers under that brand.

Références

translated from Wiki.fr

External Links

*http://www.mandrin.org (in French)