In 1791, two representatives on mission informed the National Convention of the disquieting condition of Vendée, and this news was quickly followed by the exposure of a royalist plot organized by the Marquis de la Rouërie.

It was not until the social unrest combined with the external pressures from the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and the introduction of a levy of 300,000 on the whole of France, decreed by the National Convention in February 1793, that the region erupted.

[2][3] The Civil Constitution of the Clergy required all clerics to swear allegiance to it and, by extension, to the increasingly anti-clerical National Constituent Assembly.

[6] To add to this insult, on 23 February 1793 the Convention required the raising of an additional 300,000 troops from the provinces, an act which enraged the populace,[2] who took up arms instead as "The Catholic Army"; the term "Royal" was added later.

[7] In March 1793, as word of the conscription requirements filtered into the countryside, many Vendéans refused to satisfy the decree of the levee en masse issued on 23 February 1793.

Most of the insurgents operated on a much smaller scale, using guerrilla tactics, supported by the unparalleled local knowledge and the good-will of the people.

D'Elbee was wounded, 200 men were taken prisoner, guns, rifles and baggage were lost, including a favorite cannon of the insurgents, which they had christened Marie-Jeanne.