Island-in Aix

The Island-in Aix is a common French, located in the department of the Charente-Maritime and the area Poitou-Charentes.

Geography

The Island of Aix is a French island, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of the Charente-Maritime, between the island of Oléron and Fouras.

It is an small island of approximately 119 ha, which has a form of 600 m broad crescent on 3 km length.

One produced primarily there Oyster S as at its neighbors: islands of D, of Oléron and Madam. She has a famous workshop working the Nacre.

One reaches it by boat, all the year by the vat since the Pointe of Smoke beside Fouras, and in summer, also by the high-speed motorboats since La Rochelle or the close islands.

The motor vehicle traffic is prohibited there except for the commercial vehicles, which makes of them a destination extremely appreciated of in love with nature and amateurs with calm.

It is very close to the Fort Boyard.

The island of Aix has two national museums: the Napoleon museum and the African Museum, are a museum percent inhabitants.

History

1067 : Isembert de Châtelaillon makes gift of the Island to the monks of Cluny.
Fine of the 12th century: Island-in Aix becomes a strategic site for England which disputes it in France. During all the 13th century, the attacks of the English ships follow one another, until in 1286 where the estuary of the Charente separates Saintonge English from Saintonge Frenchwoman.
In 1692, the layout of the fortifications, on the instructions of Vauban, is put flat by Ferry to defend La Rochelle, Rochefort, Brouage and the mouth of the Charente.
the Britanniques succeeded in seizing some during the Seven Year old Guerre, and destroyed the ramparts. Those were repaired then by engineers among whom one counts the physicist Charles Augustin Coulomb and Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, the author of the Dangerous Liaisons .
In 1794, under the Revolution, of the refractory hundreds of priests were buried in the island of Aix, they had died under terrible conditions, on sadly famous the let us bridge Rochefort (démâtés ships left with the anchor and used as prisons).
Napoleon i remained there one week, from July 8th to 15th 1815, before leaving the ground of France forever. It is from here it embarked for another island, much more remote: the island of Grey waxbill. The memory of the emperor still planes on the island, with the museum Napoleon and Austerlitz places it.
the Fort Liédot was used as prison for many people among whom:

Of the Communards after the fall of the Common of Paris in 1871.
Of the soldiers of the imperial Armed Russian unsubdued on the French Face in 1917. This not very glorious episode of the First World War is ignored. The 81 leaders of the insurrection of the camp of Courtine are off-set in the island of Aix. Three soldiers, died by drowning during an escape bid, are buried in the small cemetery of the island.
Ahmed Ben Bella, the chief of the FLN, which remained there of 1956 with 1962, which will become the 1st president of the Algerian republic.

Administration

Demography

Famous characters

Choderlos de Laclos , future author of the dangerous connections, was affected there in 1779. It made build the explosives magazine that one can always see close to the church.

The baron Napoleon Gourgaud , back small son of Gaspard Gourgaud, aide-de-camp of Napoleon which accompanied it in Sainte Helene. With his wife, born Eva Gebhard , they supported, in the Twenties, the demographic development of the island. They lived the pink house, dominated by a view-point, on which one can see an inscription sybilline " Jane' S tooth "

Georges Simenon remained there during the summer 1927 to move away from Joséphine Baker.

Tourist monuments and places

Napoleon museum

The house of the commander of the place in which Napoleon spent his last days to France was transformed into Museum on the initiative of the Baron Gourgaud. The door is surmounted by an astonishing inscription " With the memory of our immortal Emperor, Napoleon I°, July 15th, 1815. All was sublime in him, its glory and its reverses. And its name respected plane on Univers." the museum has many Napoleonean memories of which more moving are the 52 clocks stopped with 17:49, hour of died of the Emperor.

African museum

It contains brought back naturalized animals of forwardings of the Baron Gourgaud to Africa. Among curiosities the visitors notice especially the empaillé dromedary of the countryside of Egypt and the dodo of Mauritius (Raphus cucullatus).

Strong Liédot

the Fort of the Roads

On the instructions of Vauban, the small battery of the point Holy-Catherine became the fort of the Roads.

Fort Boyard

On the commune of the island of Aix, strong Boyard is a fortification located between the island of Aix and the island of Oléron, built initially to protect the roads from the English marine of the XVIIe century.

Gallery

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