Holy-Marguerite island

The island Holy-Marguerite is largest of the four islands of Lérins, opposite Cannes. She was used as prison with legendary the Masque of iron.

She is separated from the continent by a strait of 1 100 m not very major. She extends from west in is over a 3 km length, and its width is of approximately 900 m. One finds there very beautiful wood of the eucalypti, oldest of Europe, and pines. Majority of the island east covered by the forest, protected field pertaining to the State; it is the second most visited forest France.

History

Antiquity

The island is initially occupied by a population celto-Ligurian, whose first traces go back to the VI E. The Ligures are driven out by the Romans, driven out in their turn by a natural disaster causing a depression of the islands of several meters in the sea. The Holy-Marguerite island was called then Lero (and Saint-Honorat, Lerina), of the name of a ligure demigod venerated on the island, Lerôn.

Legends

The name given to the island would be that of a sister of Honorat of Arles (Holy Honorat), Marguerite. At the 5th century it directs a community of nuns. His/her brother who lives in the close island cannot see it because the island is prohibited to the women. The saint announces to him whereas it will come to see it only once the year, with the flowering of the almond trees, Marguerite addresses to God of so enthusiastic prayers that an almond tree planted on the shore starts to flower every month. In front of this miracle, holy Honorat feels to melt its ascetic rigor.

Another legend that Honorat and its Marguerite sister fought a dragon on this island which, mortally wounded, flew away to go to die in the hills of the back country, on the place of the village now named Draguignan.

A last legend reports the arrival of Honorat on the infested islands of vermins and snake. To make them livable, there starts a tidal wave, and remains itself with the top of vagueness while being perched in top of a palm tree. It is this legend which is at the origin of the palm of the blazon of the town of Cannes.

Of course, at the 5th century, neither the palm trees nor the almond trees were still established on the islands of Lérins. Saint Honorat did not have of known sister, Sainte Marguerite was a martyr of Antioche without bond with Saint Honorat.

The monastery based by Saint Honorat on the island of Lerina is oldest of occident.

A difficult collaboration

During the Thirty year old war, the Spaniards seized the islands and occupied them of 1635 to 1637. To take them again, the governor of Provence, the marshal of Vitry, gathers militia on the coast while Richelieu sends a fleet under the command of Sourdis, archbishop of Bordeaux, and the count d' Harcourt. The islands are finally taken again. The Spanish flags are seized to be exposed with the Notre Dame cathedral where one Te Deum celebrated the French victory.

The enigma of the iron mask

The fort

Built by Richelieu, it was reinforced by the Spaniards then by Vauban and was used as prison of state, then, after the revolution, of military prison. It accommodates from now on the Museum of the Sea presenting of the collections of underwater archeology. One can also visit the cell of the iron Mask, as those in which French Protestant pastors after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes were locked up. The ex-marshal Bazaine there was held during eight month and would have fled in a epic way on August 10th 1874.

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