Francois Athanase Charette De La Contrie, a Vendean soldier, born at Couffe, April 21, 1763, executed in Nantes, March 29, 1796. He was a member of an ancient Breton family, his branch adding the surname La Contrie after their manor. He was educated at the college of the Oratorians in Angers, entered the navy in 1779, and took part in the American war. He was among the emigres after the outbreak of the revolution, but soon returned to Paris, took part in the defence of the Tuileries, and then retired to his estates in Brittany. In March, 1793, the peasantry obliged him to become their commander, and gaining several victories over the republican troops, he was soon regarded as the insurgent leader in lower Vendee, and shared with Stofflet in the supremacy of the whole royalist camp, especially after the execution of their commander Marigny for neglect of duty, by order of a court martial. The count d'Artois promoted him to the rank of lieutenant general in July, 1794, and he soon assumed supreme authority in lower Vendee. A treaty of peace, signed Feb. 19, 1795, proving abortive, Charette resumed a guerilla warfare which was now more hopeless than ever, owing to Iloche's energetic operations as commander-in-chief of the republican army.

But though completely exhausted, and finally routed, he nevertheless urged upon the allies the recognition of Louis XVIII. Declining the most honorable terms of capitulation, with only 33 men he attempted on March 23, 1796, to fight his way through the republican ranks, but was wounded, captured, and taken to Nantes, where he was shot by sentence of a court martial. The future Louis XVIII., who called him "the second founder of the monarchy," delivered a speech in his honor at the commemoration of his death, celebrated on May 6, 1796, at the headquarters of Conde's army.