They both embodied, along with their companion Agathe Lin, a Catechist virgin decapitated on January 28, 1858, in Maokou, the courage, fidelity and spirit of resistance of Chinese Christians during the troubled period which the remote South-Eastern Provinces were undergoing in this time of international turmoil.

In August 1860, indeed, Franco-British troops invaded Peking and set fire to the Summer Palace. On October 24, the Peking Convention granted commercial advantages to the British, and to the French the right to have their missions in China be protected. These measures humiliated the Chinese government, and increased the population’s anti-Western sentiment, but had but a very limited deterrent effect in the areas far away from the Capital City, where the guerilla led by by the Taiping rebels maintained a climate of violence and insecurity. In Ghuizou, General Tian Diaren, who brought the rebellion to heel, ruled without challenge and turned out to be extremely hostile against Christians. On July 29, 1861, he had two students from the Qinyang Seminary be executed, as well as two employees, the farmer and the cook - the latter was a widow named Marthe Yang.

On February 18, 1662, Tian Diaren gave the order to arrest the missionary Jean-Pierre Néel who had arrived in the country two years earlier, with a passport granted by the Viceroy of Ghuizou. This official protection turned out to be useless. He was decapitated that very same evening, along with two Catechists, Jean Chen and Martin Wu, and a neophyte, Zhang Tianshen. Lucie Yi was executed the following day. The heads of these five martyrs were exhibited, tied together with a rope hanging from the Kaizhou city walls. Later, their remains were transfered to the Luchongguan Seminary, where the Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Liesse has since then been built, becoming one of the most popular places of pilgrimage in Southern China.

Jean-Pierre Néel’s execution sparked intense reactions on the part of Westerners who demanded compensation. Tian Diaren was exiled and the headquarters of his prefecture were handed over to the Catholics, who turned it into a Church. The Chinese had trouble putting up with these repeated humiliations. In 1870, the Church of « Notre-Dame des Victoires » (Our Lady of Victories) in Tianjin was attacked by rioters and burned down, as well as the convent and several Protestant centers. Fathers Chevrier and Wu, ten religious women and several French and British citizens were massacred. Despite relaliations, new disorders, less bloody, broke out in other provinces. Each time, the indemnities demanded as compensation were used to build churches and schools.