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St.Nazaire to Nantes (1)

Nantes, visit of this elegant city, shopping,churches, museums(2)

Brest - Douarnenez - Pointe du Raz

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Brittany- St.Nazaire to Nantes-Its history, and begin visit of the city.

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Introduction

Climate

Bretons

Music

Cuisine

History

Before traveling to Nantes, let’s say a few words about SAINT-NAZAIRE. Very important naval base for German submarines during WWII, it was practically flattened by Allied bombings. (1942 great operation on the city). But the losses were tremendous! 2/3 of the allied troops perished in the combats! And the German shot lot of hostages after the operation was over. A remembrance stone is to see next to the port.
Let’s admit that the post war rebuilding was not a big success, concrete and other concrete. So let’s not waste too much time.
Take the N 17 east, then the N 165 (E 60), south to Nantes.
Despite NANTES is not the capital of Bretagne anymore, (it is Rennes today, this city is tied up to Brittany, due to its past. It was capital from the 10th century until the sixties, when a new region “Pays de la Loire” was created. Even today there is much discussion about the status of Nantes with the Breton people claiming that Nantes is part of Brittany.
Today, Nantes is a big, modern port, like Brest and Lorient a center of resistance in WWII, and had to pay a heavy price for it. But it is the largest town of Brittany, the seventh largest in France.
It has fine shops, a bustling commercial center, a good deal in theatre, cinemas, and concert halls, all about culture. Add to this a lot of alluring restaurants and bistros with the incomparable Muscadet.
Nantes comes from the name “Namnetes”, a Gaul tribe living here before being defeated by Julius Caesar. Nantes had its golden age between the 16th and 19th century, because of its very good location for slave trade to America.

Alongside the river

Remnants of Nantes glorious past are to find in the Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne, on the place Marc Elder, (begin in 1466). The last independent rulers of Brittany, François II and his daughter, lived here and Anne built the “Tour du Fer à Cheval” and “Tour de la Couronne d’Or”. It is now a museum.
Here is a very nasty anecdote about what happened in this walls: remember the sadistic and satanic (today they say child rapers) GILLES DE RAIS, who murdered more than 200 women, man and children to abuse from their bodies. He was tried for its crimes in this castle and executed in public in 1440.
It’s also between these walls that Henri IV, signed the famous “Edit de Nantes” in 1598, which should put an end to the religious wars between Protestants and Catholics.
Nantes still saw plenty of strife down the years, and became once a harbor for pirates who preyed on British shipping in the Atlantic.
The Revolutionary days brought hard times to Nantes, being a Royalist and Catholic town.
Not forgetting that during WWII, an old destroyer “the HMS Campbeltown " was rammed into the gates of the great dry dock, damaging it so badly it was not repaired until 1956.
Suite of my Nantes review in next articles: the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Paul, musea of Nantes, the old Nantes and a walk and a Fine Arts museum.

Bibliography

Baird (Charles W.), History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, Baltimore, 1991.-Barbatti (Bruno), Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Hugenotten-und Waldenserflüchtlinge nach der Aufhebung des Edikts von Zurich, 1957-Benoist (Élie), Histoire de l’Édit de Nantes…jusques à l’Édit de Révocation en octobre 1685, Delft, 1695.-Weiss (Charles), Histoire des réfugiés protestants de France depuis la Révocation de l’Édit de Nantes jusqu’à nos jours, Paris, 1853.-Mousnier, R, Édit de Nantes avec les brevets et les articles secrets’. (1964) L’assassinat d’Henri IV. (Paris)

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