[F.: variously conjectured to be from the name of Jean Chouan, said to be one of their leaders, and from chouan an older form of chat-huant a species of owl. Probably the coincidence suggested the appellation.]
A name given to irregular bands who maintained in the west of France a partisan war against the Republic and the first Empire, after 1793, and also appeared again in 1832; hence a polemical name for partisans of the Bourbons. Also attrib.
1794. European Mag., XXVI. 307. The Chouans … derive their name from their first leaders, three brothers, the sons of a postmaster in Brittany.
1805. Revolut. Plutarch, III. 115–6. The first body of Chouan troops heard of, were those assembled in the winter of 1794 between Laval and La Gravelle.
1837. Penny Cycl., VII. 117/2. Some of the Royalist officers … became chiefs of Chouan parties.
1868. Timbs, Eccentr. Anim. Creation, 339. Every night the spirit of the officer, who was surprised and killed in this room by some chouans, comes back.
Hence Chonanize v., to play the Chouan; Chouanizing vbl. sb.
1847. T. Redhead, trans. Thiers’ Fr. Rev. (1860), I. xxxix. 481. Emigrants … were very scarce … wherever civil war raged with its dangers and horrors. They affected great disdain for this species of service, and call it Chouannising.
