Renée Bordereau

Renée Bordereau (1770 in Soulaines-sur-Aubance – 1822 in Vezins, Maine-et-Loire), nicknamed The Angevin, was a French soldier.

She followed her father, disguised herself as a man, and fought as a Royalist cavalier in the troops of Charles Melchior Artus de Bonchamps during the Vendéan insurrection against the French Revolution, and took part in all battles of the war.

She is reputed to have killed some 20 of the opposing revolutionary army, the Bleues including slitting the neck of her own uncle who was a republican.

[3] A unit led by her threw 600 Republican soldiers from the heights of Roche-de-Mûrs in the commune of Mûrs-Erigné, south of the town of Angers, Pays de la Loire, into the Louet River below.

Her effectiveness as a soldier is attested by independent sources, including Madame de La Rochejaquelein, who reported "She was of ordinary height and very ugly.