FrenchKate

October 11: Islands

What a strange year 2020 has been. With the covid pandemic and the upcoming election, I have all the time in the world, yet I find myself unable to concentrate on anything for long. I haven't posted here since the end of August! We are in our seventh month of isolation; time passes silently, unmarked by distinguishing events. The hours, days and weeks all seem to blur. My social network is limited to a friend, my daughter and grandchildren. I don't shop in person, I don't eat out, I don't attend concerts or theatre. My travel is limited to videos that I view while walking on my treadmill: Portugal, North Africa, the Swiss Alps, Easter Island, Greece, England, Egypt, South Africa, Jordan....

In reality, I have scarcely left my house. We have gone to our island four, maybe five times, over the summer. Even the island is timeless...though, from the first photo, you can see that autumn has arrived.

To review, in August, I was writing about the forts designed by Sébastien Le Prestre Vauban in the 17th century. Though it has taken me this long to arrive, my original intention was to reach Belle Île, an island off the southern coast of Brittany, where one finds one of the most perfectly preserved of Vauban's star forts.

Here is what the Michelin Green Guide has to say about the Citadelle Vauban:

"Built in 1549, the citadel was enlarged by the Duke Gondi de Retz and Fouquet. Its double ramparts, powerful corner bastions and outward appearance show the influence of Vauban, who resided here in 1683, 1687 and 1689. Besieged at the end of the Seven Years' War, it fell into the hands of the English, who occupied it until the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763. It was subsequently abandoned by the army and sold in 1960 to private owners."

The citadelle also served as a prison and was fortified by the Germans during World War 2. A 

Here's what the Michelin Green Guide has to say about Belle Île itself:

"The largest of the Breton islands is a schist plateau measuring about 35 square miles. Its name alone is enticing, yet its beauty surpasses expectation. Valley's cut deeply into the high rocks forming beaches or harbours; wheat fields alternate with patches of gorse and whitewashed houses stand in lush fields."

Brittany tourism, an online resource, informs me that "The 'Beautiful Isle" is renowned for its temperate climate, magnificent coastline, 60 gorgeous beaches and opera festival." Belle Île has charming towns, fine coastlines and beaches, and wild life. It is supposed to be good for biking, hiking and, of course, water sports. The forests that once covered Belle Île have long since been chopped down; the interior now contains windswept fields. 

I have wanted to visit Belle Île for about five years. 

 

 

 

 

 

Realtime May 12: Imaginary trip afternoon of day 1

After a short rest in our hotel room--I opened the windows to better enjoy the view and the air (which one source described as smelling of "butter and sugar") we ventured out again to explore the western part of Saint-Malo "intra-muros."

We came across a relict in Place Brevet, the Librarie le Septentrion, a bookstore that somehow escaped the bombing of 1944. A photo in the shop window reminded us of the devastation (and the remarkable preservation of the bookshop.)

Inside it was everything you want a bookstore to be--old books, prints, maps, a vase of lilies, carte postale and classical music. I was sorely tempted by Tintin, pondered an old volume of La Fontaine's fables, but in the end just bought some Cartes Postales.

Realtime: May 9. Imaginary trip: lunchtime on our first day in Saint Malo

With all that fresh sea air and walking, we had worked up quite an appetite by the time we reached the cheerful red entrance to the Creperie des Lutins, tucked down the Grande Rue. But that was a good thing, because we both chose galettes (a crepe made with buckwheat flour) and cider--the best lunch imaginable in a seaport. Absolutely yummy. The salad, of course, had too much salad dressing, à la Français. We had to sit inside--the tables outside were full when we arrived--but that gave us a chance to appreciate its whimsical decor: witches, fairies, trolls.

After this very pleasant lunch we returned to our hotel to check in. Pleasant service and a very pleasant room with a sea view...actually, quite a fantastic sea view. Our room looked straight out on Fort National (which we were planning to visit tomorrow.)

After a short rest, we went back to explore the city some more.

 

May 4: A little walk in St-Malo

Maps are everything when you travel. Everything. With a good map at hand, a traveller can stride confidently through an unfamiliar medieval town; exactly what we did on our first day in Saint-Malo. Without a good map, the traveller will be quickly reduced to a hopeless dependency, lost, confused, frustrated...like the sweaty American couple my husband and I observed in a tourist bureau in Auxerre on a very hot day in 2018; having arrived at Charles de Gaulle that morning, they had picked up a car and were bound for the Burgundy wine region. To their credit, they stopped to catch a glimpse of Auxerre en route, a city well worth a stop. However, they had no idea where they had parked their car. They had been limping around Auxerre in flip-flops and Bermuda shorts for two hours trying to find it. They didn't have a map. 

The basic French "plan de ville"--like the one of St-Malo that we picked up at our hotel when we dropped off our luggage--is a superior map in every way. You can find the local "plan de ville" in every hotel and every tourist bureau in every town in France. Their usefulness is such that I miss this cheap, ubiquitous resource when I travel in the USA. I assume that thanks goes to generations of unknown but diligent French geographers, mathematicians, generals and the French government-sponsored IGN (Institut Géographique National)--the "state administrative establishment founded in 1940 to produce and maintain geographical information for France and its overseas departments and territories." (wikipedia)

I'll post the St-Malo map again. The little blue line follows our path after we descended by the stairs by the Tour Quic-en-Groigne at the end of our ramparts walk. Then we walked through a mini- history of St-Malo--pirates, explorers, intellectuals, politicians-- encoded in its street names.

First, we walked through Place Chateaubriand, named for François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768–1848), a "French writer, politician, diplomat, and historian who founded Romanticism in French literature." (wikipedia)  According to wikipedia, "his descriptions of Nature and his analysis of emotion made him the model for a generation of Romantic writers"  Lord Byron admired him, Stendahl (his political enemy) copied him. The young Hugo aspired "to be Chateaubriand or nothing."

As we walked, Place Chateaubriand became into Esplanade Félicité Lamennais, named for Félicité Lamennais  (1782 –1854), a St-Malo born priest who is considered one of the most influential intellectuals of Restoration France.

Then Esplanade Félicité Lamennais turned into Place Guy La Chambre. We were here before, when we started the ramparts walk, but we hadn't paid attention to the name of the place. Guy La Chambre (1898 - 1975) was a 3rd generation politician who represented Saint-Malo in the National Assembly from 1928 - 1942 and served as the mayor of Saint-Malo during the critical rebuilding years of 1947 - 1965. Place Guy La Chambre is small, yet distinguished. The Malouins must have respected this mayor.

We crossed Place Guy La Chambre quickly and began walking rue Jacques Cartier, a street is named for the celebrated explorer (1491 - 1557)--who was born in Saint-Malo and mapped the St Lawrence seaway and claimed what is now Canada for France. Now lots of restaurants and tourist shops.

Rue Jacques Cartier ends at a "place" at the foot of the Grande Porte, "Place du Poids du Roi."  What a wonderful historical place of memory this is! The Grande Porte, as mentioned previously, was once the main entrance from the seaport that lay just outside the gate. The area was always bustling with horse-drawn carts carrying goods up and down the Grand Rue to ships or bringing merchandise back into town. All goods entering the city would be inventoried, weighed and measured by the Poids du Roi, the King's weights, that were kept in a shed behind a nearby house (one of those destroyed in 1944). Merchants paid duties on everything, and the tax revenue supported the Bishop and canons of Saint Malo's cathedral, and, surely, the King.

A statue of the Virgin Mary, Notre Dame de la Grande Porte, was installed in the vault of the Grande Porte after the Great Fire of 1661 destroyed 287 wooden houses in a night. The original 15th century statue, decapitated during the revolution and then restored, was transferred to the cathedral in 2003 and replaced with a copy. 

 

 

May 2: Quintessential France...

Saint-Malo puts on a different face at street level: narrow streets, tourists and tourist shops, restaurants. The city may have been rebuilt between 1945-1960, but it recreated all the old french atmosphere one can wish for, a mash-up of medieval bones, classical-style buildings, and modern facilities. I assume that plumbing and electrical power were upgraded when the city was rebuilt. Every cloud has its silver lining.

About two minutes after we climbed down the steps from the ramparts to Place Chateaubriand, I turned around and looked back. The view made me laugh. What a very French scene this is! From left to right: A restaurant with street seating, a building in the classical style (now hotel Chateaubriand) built in the 18th or early 19th century, the medieval chateau of Anne of Brittany with the ramparts in the distance, the cobblestones, a plane tree, and parking squeezed in all available space. All the elements are there.

 

Walking the ramparts of St Malo, part 5, from tour Bidouane to Fort la Reine (fantasy trip, still day 1; actual date April 26)

The St Malo ramparts peter out after the Tour Bidouane. The path resolves to a narrow sidewalk bordering a one-way street. Only near the end of this stretch, when the rampart walk resumes, did I realize that the sidewalk is still higher than neighboring streets. You have to go down a steep hill to reach the level of the city.  This section of the ramparts was constructed in the mid-19th century (1855 - 1863) to join the Tour Bidouane and the Fort La Reine. Exhilarating sea views here: islands, sun, gulls, salt air, tourists....

The name of the one-way street suggests a back-story--rue du Château Gaillard--so I dug to find the answer. History, of course.

In its early days, Saint-Malo was under the authority of a bishop and, therefore, independent of the Dukes of Brittany. Yet it was a prize, and the Dukes of Brittany--powerful and greedy--wanted it. Frustrated, one of them, Jean IV--known as "the Conquerer" besieged Saint-Malo in 1382, 1387, and 1393, and, finally, in 1394, this arrangement changed. Saint-Malo was ceded to the Pope (presumably by a fed-up bishop), and the Pope promptly handed it to French King, Charles VI (the king whose madness brought such suffering to France, ) and for the next 200 years, Saint-Malo was a French enclave in the Duchy of Brittany. 

In 1395 in recognition of his prize, Charles VI granted Saint-Malo the status of a French port; he also built Château-Gaillard, the château whose name on a street in modern Saint-Malo recalls its location. The chateau was dismantled in 1573 after a new château was completed. A Benedictine convent (Notre-Dame de la Victoire) was established on the site in 1616--the church, bell-tower and some of the cloister may still be visible. Today, the site is home to the modern buildings of L'ecole Nationale Superiéure Maritime (the Merchant Marine.) However, there appears to be a very old wall abutting the newer buildings of  L'ecole Nationale. Could it be a remnant of the chateau? I was unable to find the answer. In any case, this site has been marked by three very distinct layers of history: royal, religious, military. 

Fort La Reine is a bastion, a simple platform for cannons. Though much smaller than the Bastion de la Hollande, its shape makes clear what bastions were all about: lobbing cannon balls at threatening ships. In the pencil sketch, you can make out tour Bidouane (near the center) and two rectangular bumps in the wall where I expect Fort la Reine to be. 

All along this northern ramparts walk, you can see Fort National just off-shore. It straddles l'Islet, the rock outcropping, aka "island," lying closest to Saint-Malo. Built from 1689 as part of Vauban's plan to strengthen Saint-Malo's fortifications, the fort is open for tours at low tide. When conditions are safe, a flag goes up, and one walks out across the tideland. At high tide, the fort is cut off from the mainland.

Images 1 & 2: ramparts as sidewalk

Image 3: modern building and what appears as very old wall

Image 4: The bastion Fort la Reine. Fort National in distance.

Image 5: rue château Galliard goes down the hill on the right, the ramparts walk resumes on the left. 

Image 6: A bird's eye view of Fort La Reine with rock outcroppings at low tide

Image 7: a 18th century sketch of Saint-Malo from the sea showing the tour Bidouane in the center distance and two retacular bastions (not the single Fort la Reine) near the left side of the sketch

Image 8: Fort National at low tide, flag flying

Image 9: Fort National at high tide, cut off from mainland

 

 

 

Background images of Saint-Malo (actual date, April 25)

Learning more about the history of Saint-Malo, I stumbled on these early representations from around 1600 - 1650. In the first one, you can clearly see the strip of sand, Le Sillon, that attaches Saint-Malo to the mainland. In both you can see the strategic importance of the château that guards the road from the mainland.

In the second, note the land bridge that has been added, creating a moat around the château. Today, the moat is gone, and the whole area has been reclaimed from the sea, creating the busy esplanade Saint Vincent.  In the second one, also, note the windmills. Windmills like these determined the shape of the Bastion de la Hollande (about which I wrote yesterday.)

I love these old illustrations. And I also found images of the naval engagements that took in the 1690s.You can spot the cannons of the Bastion de la Hollande on the first one.

Finally, I have a partial answer to my question of several days ago--why was the name of the Bastion of St Francis changed to the Bastion of St Louis? The Bastion of Saint-Louis was built partly in 1414 and partly in 1721. At first, it was named Bastion Saint-François because it was close to the convent of St Francis, but during the Revolution--in 1794, to be precise--it was renamed the "Bastion of Vigilance and Equality."

I still don't know why "Saint-Louis" was chosen when they dumped the Revolutionary propaganda. But Saint-Louis was a French king, not some order-inspiring religioso like St Francis, so I wonder if the city fathers were honoring the restored Bourbon King Louis XVIII?

 

 

Walking the ramparts of St Malo, part 4 (actual date, April 24)

The western section of the ramparts walk--from the Bastion of Holland past the Beach of Bon Secours to the Tour Bidouane --dates to the 15th century. The walk rambles.

In the southwestern corner, the ramparts widen, creating an open, level space, almost a treeless park. The size of a football field, the space was still on the level of the ramparts above the city streets. This space, the Bastion de la Holland, was built after the earlier city sea walls collapsed in 1674. I was surprised to find such an open space in a medieval town, but evidently, the openness is thanks to three windmills that had operated on this site since the middle ages. So windmills make sense. Today, the space is very restful: lawns, park benches, cannons (installed in 1696), lovely 18th century mansions, incredible sea views and fresh sea air, and, at one end, the statue of Jacques Cartier (1491 - 1557)--the Saint-Malo native who claimed Canada for France.

Its name, "de la Hollande" dates to the Franco-Dutch War, when Saint-Malo was the target of several military actions. The cannons were installed in 1696. 

The walk meanders past several gates providing access to the Beach of Bon Secours.

At the other end, the horse-shoe shaped Tour Bidouane was built in the late 15th century.  Transformed into a powder magazine around 1696, it survived bombardment during another of Louis XIV's wars. An Anglo-Dutch ship tried to blow up the city ramparts by blowing up the explosives stored in tour Bidouane, but crashed on rocks submerged near the tower instead.

You can access the top of tour Bidouane by a narrow internal staircase. The views from there over the bay are spectacular, and an orientation table allows you to identify distant landmarks.

 

Walking the ramparts of St Malo, part 3: TIDES! Fantasy day 1 (real date: April 23rd)

The long western stretch of the St Malo ramparts--from the Bastion Saint Philippe (SW) to the Tour Bidouane (NW)--faces the sea. The broad beach lining the city walls is Plage de Bon Secours, the beach of good help. The rectangle is the "centre nautique"--a salt water swimming pool with a diving platform. Installed in the 1930s, the water is refreshed with each high tide.

Saint Malo is famed for its tides--the highest in Europe. The sea can rise 13 meters--39 feet-- over the course of six hours. At low tide, several kilometers of ocean floor are revealed; when the sea comes back, it rushes back faster than a man can walk.

To protect the citadel from the force of the tides, 17th century engineers installed more than 3,000 wooden piles each roughly 10 feet high along the citadel walls. The piles break the impact of the tidal waves.

We discovered that the tides, especially the spring tides, are a tourist attractions of St Malo.  People line up on the ramparts to watch. 

The video --orchestrated with "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana--records a particularly stormy high tide. Tides are rarely this dramatic, and we didn't see a dramatic high tide. You'd think, this being an imaginary trip, that it would include a high tide to remember, but no. We saw nothing like the tide in the video.

Walking the ramparts of St Malo, part 2 (fantasy trip, day 1) actual date: April 22, 2020

I learned a few things today that will enhance our ramparts walk. The first image is a map from 1715 that answers some questions.

First, as suspected, the Grande Porte--formerly the Sea Gate--used to be the main entrance to the city. It was the oldest gate; the quay was right in front of it. The ships would dock at the quay, and their goods would be carried through the Grande Porte's imposing twin towers to warehouses in the the city. Now "bassins" have been created from what was once open harbor, and the Grand Sea Gate faces a marina of pleasure boats.

Second, as suspected, the St Vincent gate and the château guarded the only land route to St Malo. St Malo (originally St Malo Island) was built on a small rock island bound to the mainland by a spit of sandy beach. This beach protected the harbor created by island, mainland and beach. Over time, land has been reclaimed and filled in and St Malo has been bound to the mainland.

Third, the southern ramparts and the surrounded quarter were reclaimed from the sea in 1715. If you look carefully at the map I posted a couple days ago, you will find a street called "Vieux Remparts"--old ramparts--that marks the former south wall of the city. The regular layout of this area  is a big clue that I missed until now. Over the course of the 18th century, rich ship owners and merchants built their splendid houses and warehouses in this reclaimed quarter. It was known as "La Californie" quarter, possibly because those wealthy inhabitants were adventurers who made their fortunes with "the silver of Peru and the gold of California." 

So, on our snail's pace tour of the ramparts of St Malo, we enjoy the views as we walk the southern ramparts from the Bastion of St Louis on the SE corner to the Bastion of St Philippe on the SW corner--from enclosed modern harbors to open sea--past the lovely houses reconstructed after 1944 on ramparts built in 1714.

In the 1714 map, the Bastion of St Louis is identified as the Bastion of St Francis and the Bastion of St Philippe is identified as the Bastion of St Michael. I wonder when the names were changed and why?

A pier or sea wall, Môle des Noires, was constructed in 1837 at the foot of the Bastion of St Philippe. Designed to protect the outer harbor, it extends 520 meters and affords splendid views of St Malo, the Bastion St Philippe, and, especially, the sea.

The wind whips your hair, the sun beats down, the sea surrounds you, and seagulls are everywhere.