Toward the end of the French Revolution, on July 17, 1794, 11 Discalced Carmelite nuns, along with three lay sisters and two tertiaries of their community in the city of Compiègne, were guillotined in Paris by order of the Revolutionary Tribunal. This was the price of remaining together as a religious community after the revolutionary regime had purported to dissolve contemplative Catholic religious orders four years earlier.
The women faced their execution with grace and courage. They renewed their vows before the crowd which had gathered to watch their beheadings. They sang the Salve Regina, the Veni Creator Spiritus and other prayers until only one of their voices could be heard from the scaffold—that of 41-year-old Thérèse de Saint-Augustin, the community’s superior, who chose to be the last to die so that she could accompany the others to their deaths.