Marie-Adélaïde de La Touche-Limouzinière

Marie-Adélaïde de La Touche-Limouzinière (married name de La Rochefoucauld-Bayers, 5 March 1760 – 24 January 1794), Countess of La Roche, was a French aristocrat, counter-revolutionary and combatant in the War in the Vendée.

Early life and family Marie Adélaïde de La Touche Limouzinière was born on the island of Grenada, a colony in the French West Indies, on 5 March 1760. Her father was Sir Henri-Louis de la Touche and her mother was Jeanne-Marie Cocu de la Fouchardière, Lady of Greix. Her family returned to France a few years after she was born.

On 4 June 1778, de La Touche Limouzinière married nobleman Pierre-Louis-Marie de la Rochefoucauld-Bayers in Nantes. He was a naval captain and Knight of Saint-Louis. She was styled after her marriage as Countess of La Roche.

War in the Vendée Shortly after the outbreak of the War in the Vendée (a conflict between French revolutionaries and royalists), on 13 March 1793 the Countess of La Roche led a group of her sharecroppers, sabre in her hand, in a rally and captured La Garnache in Pays de la Loire. She set up a counter-revolutionary committee in the village, assisted by Joseph Thoumazeau of the Coudrie Commandery. Later in May 1793, the Countess of La Roche was received by counter-revolutionary military officer and leader François Athanase Charette de La Contrie, as recounted by officer Pierre-Suzanne Lucas de La Championnière, and they allegedly had a love affair. As the guillotine had been damaged and was unusable, she was shot to death.