Belle-Ile-en-mer

Situation

It is the largest Breton island , it is located vis-a-vis Quiberon and close to the islands of Houat and Hœdic. The poetess belliloise Eva Jouan had, in its time, nicely called Belle-Île " well the nommée" in one of the poems of its collection " Grève" , published in 1896. In addition, a Breton proverb said Which sees Beautiful-Isle, sees its island .

It should not be confused with Beautiful-Isle-in-Ground, commune of the Coast-with Armor.

It constitutes the Canton of Belle-Ile. It is formed of the four common, joined together in a Communauté of communes of Belle-Île-en-Mer:

Bangor, borough located inside the grounds, accessible by airliner since Nantes (the line was closed).
Locmaria, borough located at the point is island.
the Palate, principal port. Accessible in ferry since Quiberon.
Sauzon, second port. Accessible by the sea links in season.

Description

Belle-Ile is largest of the Breton islands. Located at 14 km at broad of the peninsula of Quiberon, it is appeared as a 17 km length plate on 9 km broad of an average altitude of 40 meters notched by many small small valleys. The coast of the island, made up of a made friable rock of schists and mecaschists interfered quartz, especially undergoes an intense erosion of the sea on the Western Southern frontage turned towards the broad one (Wild Coast). It results from it a very cut out coast, made up in majority of cliffs. Witness of this fast erosion, the small island of Lonègues, which with the Middle Ages prolonged the point of the Foalta, practically disappeared today under water.

On the Northern frontage, is sheltered, emerge 2 rias which allowed the creation of the 2 ports of the island: the Palate and Sauzon. On this same frontage one finds the great beach of the island (Large Sands).

The climate of Belle-Ile is very oceanic and profits from a particularly important sunning. The frosts are rare, it rains more rarely than on the continent and the winters are soft (average of the 9° minima) what makes it possible the Mediterranean plants to thrive.

There does not remain any more trace of the forest primitive ; the center of the island was completely cleared and is devoted today to agriculture. This one very prosperous at the 19th century (early product culture,…) is today in strong decline. The southern parts and Southern Western, most exposed, are bordered of an uncultivated zone burned by the spray.

History

At the time Roman, it is called isulae Veneticae by Jules César and Vindilis by the geographer Ptolémée, which gave Gwezel or Old man-Breton Gwedel in (the etymology is discussed), denomination which disappeared with the profit from Gerveur at the end from the Moyen-âge. It is renamed island of the Unit under the French revolution then Île Joséphine under Napoleon i, before finding its traditional names " rear Gerveur" into Breton and " Beautiful-Île" in French.

Belle-Ile was very early separated from the continent, around 6000 years before our era, contrary to its neighbors Houat and Hoëdic which was still connected, at that time, by a roadway. The island is despite everything occupied as of the Neolithic era but one finds at that time few traces going up, perhaps because of the bad quality of the local schist. With the Bronze Age, the number of burials seems to represent an increase in the population; it is undoubtedly the consequence of the development of specific navigation to this period. During the Age of iron, several spurs are strengthened on the Wild Coast, of which most important (5 hectares) is on the peninsula of the Old Castle in the Western North of the island.

Discoveries of currencies and tiles attest that Belle-Île was occupied during the Gallo-Roman time. The island at that time was indicated under the name of Vindilis. With the fall of the Roman Empire, Belle-Île forms part, like the Low-Brittany, of the grounds colonized by the Breton ones come from In addition to Manche.

To the 9th century, Belle-Île belongs to the count of Cornwall (in Brittany). This one, to raise the island devastated by the invasions of the Viking S, yields it to the Bénédictins Redon. The island then takes the Breton name of Guedel. The island changes owner again in 1029: the count de Cornouaille entrusts, for political reasons, the island with the Benedictines recently installed with Quimperlé. The management of the island is delegated to a provost who has the spiritual power and temporal (duty basic, average and high justice which is exerted sometimes in Belle-Île sometimes with Quimperlé). In 1408, justice is exerted more only with Quimperlé; two officers are appointed by the abbot of Quimperlé: l'" official" manage the spiritual one and the " commandant" in load temporal island as well as the defense of the coasts has. The island is constantly the target, at that time, of pirates of the areas close (Saintonge, Charente) or to more remote countries (Holland, England).

In 1548, Henri II decides that this strategic site must be strengthened. But, in spite of the royal injunctions, the fortifications advance slowly. The monks always owners of Belle-Ile advance that the released incomes are insufficient to finance required work. Belle-Ile is then yielded to Albert de Gondi favorite of Catherine de Médicis. Belle-Ile is plundered by the Spaniards in 1567, then in 1573 by Gabriel de Montgomery, military chief Protestant. The ground of Belle-Ile is set up in marquisat in 1573 and is from now on the seat of a Sénéchaussée. The Gondi begin the construction of a fortress to the Palate. The island knows a certain prosperity thanks to this building site. But finances of the Gondi, very extravagant, périclitent. The cardinal of Retz, last owner, slinger and thus discredited near the king Louis XIV, must yield the island which is taken again in 1658 by Nicolas Fouquet then in favor. After having launched important work (construction of a pier, beginning of a building site of enlarging of the port,…) Fouquet falls, three years later, in disgrace.

Vauban is dispatched in Belle-Île in 1682 to check the state of the fortifications. It notes that the site chosen for the fortress suitable because is not dominated by several positions around. For lack of means, it is satisfied to make arrange what exists: reinforcement of the enclosure, removal of the district of high Boulogne located on the Glacis Western of the fortress. But the principal improvements required by Vauban are not carried out: construction of sufficient defenses along the beach of Large Sands which constitutes a place of ideal unloading, construction of an enclosure surrounding the city of the Palais.

In 1686, the troops of the coalition anglo-Dutchwoman try to unload on the beach of Large Sands but are pushed back. Stratagem, which makes believe that the island is defended by many troops, dissuades the attackers to continue their attempts at unloading. In 1718, the island is repurchased with the grandson of Nicolas Fouquet and is attached directly to the royal Domaine. In 1720, the island is entrusted to the Compagnie of the Indies: the Palate and Sauzon become free ports. The embezzlements which follow lead the king to entrust to the island to farmer general until 1759 then as from this date to the province of Brittany.

During the War Seven Year old, the French fleet undergoes the law of the British. The battles naval of the Cardinals (in the east of Hoedic) ensures the British supremacy in local water. In 1761 the British unload in the island on the beach of Large Sands. Fear are quickly built on the heights of the Palais but do not manage to contain the attackers: the invaders can install their batteries of artillery on the heights vis-a-vis the citadel. At the end of 3 weeks, the principal enclosure having been put low, the citadel must go. The British occupy the island ( 18 000 men for 5 000 inhabitants) until the treated of Paris in May 1763 which devotes the British domination on the seas: the British restore Belle-Île against Minorque. Starting from 1765, 78 families of Acadie NS, survivors of the great disturbance settle in Belle-Île. Since they remained on the island, and the majority of the îliennes families have the Acadian ones among their ancestors.

To facilitate the rectification of the island and to encourage the colonists and the Acadian ones to cultivate the ground, of the concessions being worth document of title are allotted (ten hectares of arable lands, a house, a surface to be beaten, a barn). It is the occasion of the lifting of a Cadastre quite former to the first Napoleonean land register. The result of this policy is a half-failure (half of Acadian set out again in various areas of France), but the population grows of a thousand of inhabitants until the Revolution.

During the French revolution, the island is an important issue in the fight against the British but is never attacked. Its fortifications at the time and until 1870 are regularly modernized.

As of 1902, the Ministère of Justice buys in Belle-Île the farm of Bruté and transforms it into “agricultural and maritime colony”, Bagne for “delinquent” children. In spite of a famous revolt of the children in 1934, which revealed with the whole world the detention conditions, the bagne was definitively closed only in 1977. Jacques Prévert and Marcel Carné ( the Fleur of the age ) paid a vibrating homage to the young heroes of this dark period of the history of Belle-Ile.

As in the remainder of Brittany, fishing sardinière develops quickly in second half of the 19th century. In 1855 one counts ten factories sardinières in Belle-Île. The development of the flotilla of fishing involves in 1911 the opening of a shipyard which employs a hundred people. The population strongly grows until reaching 11 000 inhabitants in 1872. Twenty years later starts at the same time demographic and economic decline due partly to the exhaustion of the fishing resources but also to a modification of the distribution chains. At the end of the 19th century the first tourists attracted by the charm of the island appear: Claude Monet, Sarah Bernhardt, Albert Roussel. Today tourism is one of the independent sources of incomes of the island.

About 1890, the company of navigation to vapor " beautiful Iloise" a regular relation with Auray establishes. Today it is the Company morbihanaise and Nantes of navigation which carries out the service road of the island since Quiberon in 45 minutes at a rate of five return tickets except season, carried to ten during the summer period.

The citadel of the Palate, which since the end of the 19th century was not more one place strategic, as well as the forts dispersed on the coast are sold to private individuals. Since 1960, the citadel is patiently restored by its propriétaires ; the quality of this restoration and the small museum of the island which it shelters justify a visit. It was bought in 2005 by the Private mansions of the group of Philippe Savry.

The trade turned towards the tourist customers take over fishing and agriculture which occupy arm less and less.

Belle-Ile is today a very run destination of Vacances. Many continental acquired second home there. Its port S attracts at the beautiful season of many yachtmen which make pass the population of the island of 4.800 people the winter to 40 000 in summer. In 2005 the annual needs for the island are of approximately 550 000 m 3 of Drinking water, of which the imported part costs 23 €/m 3 . In 2006, a system of Dessalement makes it possible to face the needs for a price five times less.

Personalities come to Belle-Île

Contrary to Nicolas Fouquet, which never came to Belle-Île, in spite of the interest that it carried to the island, a great number of personalities came to visit or live on the island. In May 1847, within the framework of its voyage in Brittany in company of Maxime of the Camp, Gustave Flaubert and his companion, after having passed to Carnac and Quiberon, made a point of visiting Belle-Ile of which they surveyed the shores, the fields and the moors, " without unspecified guide nor information (cest there the good way) ". The account of this stay is included in the work entitled By the fields and the grêves .

Artistes

Sarah Bernhardt lived in its fort which it had acquired with the Point with the Foalta.
Arletty had acquired a house close to the beach to Giving.
Claude Monet which immortalisé certain places of the island in its tables.
Prévert came in Sauzon.
Florent Schmitt came there.
Albert Roussel composed his famous Sonatine in 1912 there.

Politiques

François Mitterrand liked to come to spend a few days to Sauzon.
Jean-Pierre Chevènement regularly comes to spend its holidays to Belle-Île

Captive

Blanqui which was locked up with the Fouquet Castle.
Jean-Baptiste Belley which was locked up with the Citadel of the Palate

Posterity

It was sung by Laurent Voulzy in the Chanson Beautiful-island at sea, gallant Marie . This song inspired the Trophée BPE in 2007 as well as the Jumelage of the Marie-Gallant island with .

the book the riders of Belle-Ile of Hubert Monteilhet occurs partly to Belle-Île, with the XVIIe century.

It was the place of turning of Dolmen , the saga of summer 2005 of TF1, with Ingrid Chauvin and Bruno Madinier as main actors.

It is the recurring place of the intrigue of series data base Elysium République published at Casterman in 2007, whose hero, Constant Kérel, are native island.

It accommodates every summer the Festival of Lyric art Lyric-in-sea

Remarkable places

the Citadel Vauban with the Palate. Member of the Network of the major sites of Vauban
Visit (plan and photographs) of the Citadel Vauban de Belle-Île at sea
the needles of Port-Cotton, immortalized by the painter Claude Monet, which resemble the Sphinx, with the bust of Louis XIV, with the Mont Saint Michel…

Several photographs of the Port-Cotton Needles
the cave of the Pharmacy. Broad maritime cave, crossing right through a rock point, called thus because of the many bird's nests, aligned along its walls, making think of pots of medicinal products, as those which decorated the gravers of the " Apothecary s" formerly. These nests disappeared today, the birds nesting there were decimated by a hunting " touristique" they were the object at the end of the 18th century: one brought the tourists in the boat to it since Sauzon, arrived in the cave those had fun there to draw from the rifle shots and to see flying, thrown into a panic, the birds which found refuge there.
the port of Sauzon with the frontages of its houses to the colors pastel
the Headlight of Goulphar
the point of the Foalta, headland of the island vis-a-vis the dominant winds
the Fort of Sarah Bernhardt

Gallery

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