Charles-Gilbert Romme and Claude-Antoine Prieur-Duvernier

Charles-Gilbert Romme, French politician and revolutionary, and Claude-Antoine Prieur-Duvernier (also known as “Prior of the Gold Coast”), engineering officer, are both elected as ‘Montagnard’ (highlander) deputies at the National Convention.  As representatives on assignment, they found themselves in Caen in order to re-establish the order against the Girondist insurrection.  They are captured on 9 June 1793 and imprisoned as hostages in the presbytery of the Church of Saint-Georges. After the end of the insurrection in Normandy, as reprisals, the National Convention orders by decree the destruction of the Château de Caen.  If the demolition works commence rapidly, from the month of August the enthusiasm of the Revolutionaries diminishes very quickly.  The keep, in part devastated, is still conserved for several years on at least one floor, which the military will blow up at the beginning of the XIX century.