Pierre-René Rogue was born to a Vannes merchant family in upper Brittany and ordained priest in 1782 at twenty-four. He entered the Vincentians (the Congregation of the Mission of Vincent de Paul, the Lazarists) in 1786 at twenty-eight and served as professor of theology at the diocesan seminary of Vannes from 1788.
When the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 1790 required all French clergy to swear the constitutional oath, Pierre-René refused. The seminary was closed; he went into hiding, living for five years in the houses of Vannes recusant Catholics, exercising clandestine pastoral ministry through the Reign of Terror and the long suppression of the Brittany Catholic Church. He was finally arrested on Christmas Eve 1795 carrying the Blessed Sacrament to a dying parishioner — having delayed his visit until after dark to avoid the patrols, but having been recognized by an informant.
Tried, convicted of being a refractory priest, and condemned, he was guillotined on the Place des Lices in Vannes on March 3, 1796 — refusing to the end the offered chance of taking the constitutional oath in exchange for his life. Beatified 1934. He is one of the principal figures of Brittany's Catholic recusant memory of the French Revolution.