A Vendéan, named Repoche, who during the French Revolution served in the royal army, having been taken prisoner by the revolutionary party, was conducted by them to a place where a cross had been erected, and there he was thus accosted: “You have been taken with arms in your hands, and so your life is forfeited. There yonder is the cottage in which you were born; your father is still living there; now your life will be spared to you if you will do one thing. Take up that axe and at once cut down that cross.” Repoche took up the axe; his fellow prisoners turned aside their heads and trembled, for they thought that Repoche was about abjuring his God.
Repoche, brandishing the axe over his head, sprung upon the pedestal of the cross, and uplifting his arm, cried out in tones loud enough to be heard by even those who were at a distance: “Death to him who shall insult the cross of Jesus Christ! I shall defend it from ignominy to my last breath!” With his back to the sacred wood, he swung the axe round his head, his eyes brilliant with a Divine fire, and his frame endued with supernatural strength. For some minutes he succeeded in warding off the sacrilegious soldiers, but soon he was overwhelmed by numbers, and though transfixed in every part of his body, he still clung fast to the cross, and in this position was put to death.
Stories from The Catechist by Very Rev. Canon G. E. Howe, Pg. 354, #827
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 458
