FRANCE - LA VENDÉE

2016   SEPTEMBER

To reach La Vendée from Brittany one has first to cross the Département Loire Atlantique but I was happy to do that this year as I had visited in 2015.

Here is a map showing where in France La Vendée is situated and its boundaries with adjacent Départements and the ocean.

ST CHRISTOPHE DU LIGNERON

I stayed for two weeks at a site on the outskirts of this small town. The site was well-appointed and I was assigned a pitch in an area for about 40 that had only just been developed. There was only one permanent resident in a touring van and an occasional transient who stayed for just one night en route to somewhere else.    So it was very private and very tranquil with fine “Late Summer” weather for the most part.

The town did have a small supermarket but it wasn't very well stocked so mostly I went in to Challans for supplies where “Hyper U” had more than enough to please anyone and an outstanding Fish section at which I bought a whole cooked Lobster on one occasion.

THE VENDÉE WARS

This region was at the centre of a major civil war during the French Revolution.

So much so that the conflict has a name of its own and a museum about “Les Guerres de Vendée” in St Florent-le-Vieil” on the Loire that I visited in 2015.

In those days the region was considerably larger than the modern Département and very agricultural with the primarily peasant population living in reasonable harmony with their lords who mostly lived in the region (unlike those in other provinces who tended to spend a lot of time at the Royal Court).   So there was a smaller social gulf between peasants and aristocrats here than in other parts of France and furthermore both groups were fervent catholics.

The republicans in Paris passed two decrees that infuriated the locals. The first was that each province should provide 300,000 of their number to serve in the revolutionary army and the second that all Catholic priests should swear allegiance to a National Body (as distinct from the Pope).

These two factors led to the regional nobility and clergy rebelling against the Revolutionary leaders in Paris and forming a local Catholic (and subsequently Royalist) Army.

Initially they had some successes, defeating a number of expeditionary armies sent against them and capturing a number of republican strongholds such as Saumur from which they acquired canon and other armaments.    During this period they showed some mercy to their defeated enemies releasing prisoners against a promise of never returning to fight against them again.

But the larger numbers from the rest of France available to the republicans began to win victories.

On 1 August 1793, the Committee of Public Safety in Paris (Jeremy Corbyn style 1790s Government) ordered General Carrier to carry out a "pacification" of the region by complete physical destruction.    He adopted a scorched earth policy and later, after many massacres, another General reported - "The Vendée is no more ... According to your orders, I have trampled their children beneath our horses' feet; I have massacred their women, so they will no longer give birth to brigands. I do not have a single prisoner to reproach me.    I have exterminated them all."

It is estimated somewhere between 20% - 50% of the population were killed during this conflict – perhaps that's the historical precedent Président Hollande had in mind when he said “The UK must be punished for its Brexit Vote”.

A LOCAL BIKE RIDE

Nowadays La Vendée is fully integrated into the French way of life and tourist maps are available illustrating various “Vendée à Velo” routes.

I followed one of these as illustrated on the map below.

The route followed a combination of small paved roads and ones with just a gravel surface. It was well signposted throughout, even in the “back of beyond” with large fields in all directions and no landmarks to aid location of position.

Unfortunately a subsequent computer accident has resulted in loss of all my photos of this ride but I can confirm:

The region is still very agricultural

The fields are very large

Many are irrigated with hoses and sprinklers the like of which it would be impossible to buy in B&Q or Bunnings.

Many of the farmhouses and Cottages look exactly the same as I imagine they did in the 18th century.

There is an occasional Chateau but not so frequently or so grandiose as in the Loire Valley.

A  Vendee Voie a Velo 

As indicated by the arrows I rode this 25 km circuit in an anti-clockwise direction – but it could equally well be followed the other way.

MARAIS POITEVIN

This area is in the south of the Département and is recorded here to comply with the geographical and political boundaries though I did in fact make the expedition from my subsequent stop at Surgères in Charente Maritime.

Before the last “Ice Age” the boundary between the Atlantic Ocean and France lay much more to the east than it does today. There was in fact a “Gulf of Poitou”, but as the ice receded it left sediment more or less filling the Gulf, at least to sea level. So, the “Marais Poitevin” was borne and has now become a French “National Park”.

Nowadays the idea of a “Marsh” is a little far-fetched because so many drainage channels have been dug to allow cultivation that the surrounding land has the appearance of ordinary fields.

For my expedition I chose an area shown on my “Pocket Earth” digital map to be close to the centre of the Park with the small town of Le Mazereau as the largest human settlement in the area. The roads here have frequent bridges over the canals and many have beside them boat rental businesses for the entertainment of tourists. Mostly these were “punt-style” craft propelled by poles rather than oars with an occasional small sports boats having an outboard motor.

With the aid of my digital map I worked out a figure of eight ride as shown on the map below and initially made an exploratory trip in the car along the lower loop in the figure starting from the small village of Saint Sigismund. I chose this start because the map indicated it had a public Car Park. In fact there were many other possible places along the route ranging from formal car parks to open spaces besides the track.

My route left Saint Sigismond along a gravel surfaced track just wide enough for a car and the depth of the canal so effectively used to make the surrounding countryside cultivable can be judged from this photo.

The surface soon changed to tarmac as the track became a back-road serving a number of outlying houses and farms with manicured hedges and fields.

On the ride I left the first loop at Sainte Christine to cross a bridge into slightly less developed country. There were many smaller and shallower canals here, still with drained land forming small fields on either side but possibly still subject to flooding in the wet season.

But soon the land became slightly more elevated though the road was still narrow and bordered by rows of tall trees in the classic French style.

A surprise awaited me at Aviré when I found myself riding down a road named “Rue du Port”. The reason soon became clear as I came across a quite large flooded basin with concrete walls. This had indeed been a working port in days gone by and I supposed that meant there used to be working barges carrying goods between this small inland town and others on the waterways, perhaps even to the coast.

The entire Marais is famed for its wildlife and here there was an unpaved but cleared way along the bank beside the canal for the use and entertainment of serious naturalists and tourists alike.

Returning to Sainte Christine again I took this photo showing a typical weeping willow and launching platform for canal watercraft.

And so back to the car via the small hamlet of Celette.