ANGELA BIRD'S
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Photo: Vendée tourism brochure |
When Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henri Plantagenet, Duke
of Normandy (and, later, King Henry II of England) in 1152, she brought as
her dowry vast areas of western France. Combined with her husband's existing
lands in the north, this meant that half of France was into English hands. The pretty Vendée
village of Nieul-sur-l'Autise is thought to be the birthplace of Eleanor of
Aquitaine. Nieul's Romanesque abbey, left, was the burial place of Eleanor's
mother. |
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Photo: Angela Bird |
Eleanor's son Richard the Lionheart - Richard I of
England - liked the Bas-Poitou (as theVendée was then known) and often based
himself in the region, notably at Talmont, either for fighting or hunting. A century
later the English king Edward III, grandson of king Philippe IV of France,
made a claim to the French crown. The resulting Hundred Years' War betwen
the two countries - sustained by England's Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V -
turned much of north and western France into a battleground until 1453 when
the French succeeded in winning back everything but the town of Calais. |
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Photo: Angela Bird |
Since the Vendée held a considerable number of
influential Protestants, the region was also greatly marked by the 36-year Wars
of Religion which broke out in 1562. Eventually the French king Henri IV,
who had been brought up a Protestant and converted to Catholicism on his
accession, granted freedom of worship to the Protestants in 1598, through the
Edict of Nantes, and the Wars of Religion came to an end. (The Edict
of Nantes was revoked in 1685, causing many Protestants to flee from France.)
A stone
Plantagenet-style figure, left, in the Romanesque church of Angles is thought
to be of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, or of his father Henry II of England. |
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Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) - one-time bishop of Luçon
- who was chief minister to Louis XIII between 1624 and 1642, saw the need to
unite the whole of France under one crown. To reduce the power of the
provincial dukes and princes, he ordered the destruction of their
strongholds, reducing such Vendean castles as Talmont, La Garnache, Les
Essarts and Apremont to ruins. |
THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE WARS OF THE VENDÉE
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After the Storming of
the Bastille in 1789 and the Declaration of the |
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Photo: Angela Bird |
New ideas permeated only slowly to the Vendée, more than
200 miles from Paris. In this rural region, then known as Bas-Poitou, social
inequality was not as marked as elsewhere. The aristocrats were less rich,
their tenant farmers less poor, and the priests more revered. The Vendean peasants were dismayed to find that the
Revolution removed their king (Louis XVI was executed in January 1793),
forced on them the unpopular new priests loyal to the changed order, and
called for the payment to the Republican government of even higher taxes than
had been due under the monarchy. The confiscated goods of the old Church and
deported clergy were thought to be lining the pockets of the bourgeoisie who
had engineered for themselves top administrative posts. Ignoring the newly
sworn-in priests who had been assigned to their churches, the Vendeans
continued to worship clandestinely at open-air Masses said by rebellious,
pre-Revolutionary clergy. Vendean farmers, left,
took up scythes and billhooks to protect themselves. |
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Photo: Angela Bird |
The spark that ignited the three years of horrific civil
warfare, was the Republican government's decision in February 1793 to raise a
300,000-strong army for the defence of France's borders against threatened
invasion by neighbouring countries opposed to the overthrow of the French
monarchy. The people of Bas-Poitou and neighbouring départements
refused to submit to formal conscription so Republican soldiers were sent in
to draw names at random. Riots ensued. In March the inhabitants of Machecoul
massacred the Republican troops billeted in the town; other villages followed
suit. But generally counted as the start of the wars was the mass refusal of
conscription, on 11 March 1793, by the people of St-Florent-le-Vieil, midway
between Nantes and Angers, in the département of Maine-et-Loire.
Switching their scythe blades from horizontal to vertical, the populace
routed the "Bleus" ("Blues", or Republican troops,
sometimes referred to as "patriots"), and captured their cannon,
then called upon a humble carter, Jacques Cathelineau, to lead them.
Cathelineau and, later, Jean-Nicolas Stofflet were working-class
generals; for the rest, the Vendean peasants prevailed on trusted members of
the local aristocracy to take command - François-Athanase Charette de
la Contrie, Henri de Lescure, Henri de la Rochejaquelein, the
Duc d'Elbée - whose names have passed into local folklore. The stone, left, at Nuaillé
- near Cholet - marks the place where Henri de la Rochejaquelein fell. |
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The initially ill-equipped Republicans were soon
reinforced, and the early Vendean victories turned to defeat at Nantes (where
Cathelineau was mortally wounded). The Vendeans (also known as
"Whites", or "brigands") lost Cholet and then, in search
of hoped-for reinforcements from England (whence many of the French nobility
had fled), made a seemingly-impossible dash, known as the "Virée de
Galerne", north across the river Loire. On 18 October 1793 the Vendeans
ferried between 60,000 and 100,000 men, women and children over the wide and
treacherous river. After an epic 200km march north in an attempt to capture a
suitable Channel port ready to receive the expected English aid, the Vendeans
laid siege to the town of Granville in November. Having failed to take the
port, they set off back towards the Loire. At Le Mans, 10,000 were cut down
at the hands of the heavily-armed Republicans. Tens of thousands more died,
either in combat or from sickness or hunger. In December 1793 just a few
thousand managed to re-cross the Loire. Determined that such insurrection should never happen
again, the Republicans sent "colonnes infernales"
("fiery columns" of troops) to lay waste every village and kill
every remaining person in the département of Bas-Poitou - that would
henceforth be renamed "Vendée". From early 1794 these death squads
passed from village to village burning, pillaging and massacring. At Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne 563 people -
women, children and old men - were shot as they knelt in church. (Try clicking on various headings on the
Les Lucs/Chabotterie website for “virtual tours” of memorial and chapel) |
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Photo: Josette Ahuir |
The few surviving Vendeans returned home to ruined
houses, murdered families. Hiding out among the gorse and the forests, they continued
to wage a guerrilla warfare for many months. Charette and Stofflet signed
peace treaties with the Republicans in 1795, though Charette continued to
lead skirmishes and ambushes against the Blues until his capture at La Chabotterie in March 1796, and his
subsequent execution.
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Under a treaty drawn up by the Republican General Hoche
in 1799, freedom of worship returned to France. Napoleon Bonaparte made
supervision of the unruly region less difficult by transferring the capital
from Fontenay-le-Comte to La Roche-sur-Yon, then a mere village, in
the geographical heart of the Vendée. Although, with Charette's death, the wars had reached an
end, some further attempts were made to rekindle them. In 1815, Louis de La
Rochejaquelein (brother of Henri) carried out an unsuccessful invasion near
Croix-de-Vie. Seventeen years later the Duchesse de Berry tried to seize the
French throne for her son, the Duke of Bordeaux - grandson of Charles X. |
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For
a highly-readable account of the Vendée Wars
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PLACES
ASSOCIATED WITH THE VENDÉE WARS
Tourist offices stock maps describing Les Routes de la Vendée Militaire.
Among the most interesting museums and other
places associated with the Vendée Wars are:
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Photo: La Chabotterie website |
The Logis de la
Chabotterie, near St-Sulpice-le-Verdon; an elegant manor house where the
Vendean general Charette was captured and interrogated. Now an informative
museum and discovery centre, with large park, and a beautifully-tended
garden. The south façade of La
Chabotterie, left, overlooks the colourful parterre garden.. |
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Photo: La Chabotterie/ |
Les
Lucs-sur-Boulogne, scene of a terrible massacre where 563 people were locked
in a church, shot and then burnt by Republicans. Memorial chapel of Les
Petits-Lucs, built on the site; new, state-of-the-art Chemin de la Mémoire
building; stained-glass windows in village church. The solid grey stone
of the Mémorial des Lucs is a focal point for memory.. |
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Photo: Noirmoutier tourism brochure |
Noirmoutier Castle, on
the island of the same name, for the bullet-ridden chair where d'Elbée was
shot on the square outside, also the painting of this scene, and other
souvenirs.
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Photo: Angela Bird |
Le Mont des Alouettes,
near Les Herbiers; three remaining windmills of the seven whose sails were
used to pass coded messages to the guerrilla warriors indicating the
whereabouts of the Republican troops. One of the remaining
windmills, left, at Le Mont des Alouettes. |
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Photo: Refuge de Grasla brochure |
Forest of Grasla,
north of La Roche-sur-Yon; 2,500 Vendeans hid out here for six months in
1794. One of the most
attractive corners of the Vendée, the Refuge de Grasla, left, is a
reconstruction of the woodland shelters constructed by Vendeans trying to
hide from the Republican forces. |
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Photo: Cholet |
Musée d'Art et
d'Histoire, at Cholet; paintings, objects and explanations in an
ultra-modern setting.
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Musée des Guerres de Vendée, at Les Sables-d'Olonne,
for waxworks and documents. (Currently "closed
for refurbishment". 2009) |
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Le Panthéon de la Vendée, cemetery at La Gaubretière
where many combattants are buried. |
SOME WEB SITES DEALING WITH THE WARS
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in English in French |
BOOKS
DEALING WITH THE VENDEE WARS
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by Anthony Trollope First published in 1850, Trollope's historical novel
based on the diaries of Madame de la Rochejaquelein (who was married to - and
lost - two husbands who were civil war leaders), is an excellent introduction
to this tragic episode in Vendée history. |
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by Simon Schama Fascinating and highly readable account of the French Revolution,
by well-known historian Simon Schama, including an excellent section
examining the often-ignored Vendée Wars. |
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For more than four years of World War II the Vendée was
occupied by German forces, who commandeered the coastline and denied access
to many villages along it. Vestiges of their reinforcements can be seen on
the beaches at Pont-Jaunay, Jard and other places. Tourism has today taken the lead as the county's main
money-spinner. Close behind come agriculture (beef and dairy cattle, pigs and
poultry in the woods and hills of the "bocage"; cereal-growing in
the plains; sheep and cattle in the marshes; and early vegetables on the
island of Noirmoutier); fishing (sardines, tuna, sole and langoustines,
oysters and mussels); manufacture of clothes and shoes; boat-building
(St-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie is the home of the world-famous Bénéteau yachts); food-canning;
and the construction of agricultural machinery. © Angela Bird |
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