Vendée

• 1. Introduction

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  The Vendée is a department in the Pays de la Loire region of Western France, facing the Atlantic coast. In 2023 it had a population of 713,609, and its prefecture is La Roche-sur-Yon. Yet its name has travelled far from those beaches and farms. Karl Marx, writing about revolutionary struggles in several countries, used the phrase "a Vendée" to mean a focus of persistent counter-revolutionary activities. Vladimir Lenin borrowed the idea when he described the Cossacks as a potential Russian Vendée. How does one French department become shorthand for resistance to a revolution? And what does it hold beyond that reputation? The answers begin with the land and with the name itself.

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• 2. Name and Land

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  The river Vendée, which runs for 70 km through the southeastern part of the department, gave the whole place its name. In the 10th century the river appears in records as Fluvium Vendre. By the 11th century it is recorded as Flumen Vendee and as Vendeia.

  According to Pierre-Henri Billy, the name ultimately comes from a Celtic place-name element, *vindo-, meaning white or brilliant in a sacred context. Modern Welsh gwyn and wyn are relatives of that root. The name most likely began in Proto-Celtic or Gaulish, though Gallo or Old Breton remain possible origins.

  Three other rivers cross the department alongside the Vendée. The Sèvre Nantaise runs for 135 km, the Lay for 110 km, and the Sèvre Niortaise for 150 km. The highest point in the whole department is Puy-Crapaud, at 295 m. Its inhabitants are called Vendeans, or Vendéens in French.

  Long before it carried the river's name, this land was known as the Bas-Poitou, part of the former province of Poitou.

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• 3. Contested Ground

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  In the southeast corner of the department, the village of Nieul-sur-l'Autise is believed to be the birthplace of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who lived from 1122 to 1204. Her son Richard the Lionheart often had his base in Talmont. Then the Hundred Years' War, which ran from 1337 to 1453, turned much of the Vendée into a battleground.

  By 1562 religion had supplied a new reason to fight. The region held a considerable number of influential Protestants, and Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henry IV of France, held control there. The French Wars of Religion broke out in 1562 and continued until 1598. In April of that year Henri IV issued the Edict of Nantes, which ended them.

  The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 caused many Huguenots to flee the Vendée. In the void they left, the region became rigorously Catholic. The preacher and Marian missionary Louis de Montfort radically changed its spirituality. Many people attribute to his preaching the work of preparing Vendeans for their later revolt against the French Revolution.

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• 4. The Revolt

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  In 1793 the Vendeans rose against the Revolutionary government. They resented the harsh oppression of the Catholic Church under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed in 1790. Open revolt came after the Revolutionary government imposed military conscription.

  In March, a massacre of Republicans took place at Machecoul. Guerrilla warfare followed. At the outset it was led by peasants who were chosen in each locale.

  The war ended in 1796 after costing more than 240,000 lives. The book Détruisez la Vendée, by Jacques Hussenet and the Centre Vendéen de Recherche Historique, breaks the toll down. It counts 190,000 Vendeans, who were republicans or royalists, and 50,000 republican soldiers from outside the Vendée.

  This revolt must not be confused with the revolt of the Chouans, which took place at the same time in Maine and Brittany. The Vendée's leadership was a mixture of aristocrats and commoners. Britain provided funds and weapons, but various plans for military support were thwarted or cancelled. The best known of these failures was the ill-fated Quiberon Expedition of 1795.

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• 5. Napoleon's Grid

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  In 1804 Napoleon chose La Roche-sur-Yon as the capital of the department. Most of the town had been eradicated in the revolt of 1793-96. A renamed Napoléonville was laid out with a square-grid street network, designed to hold 15,000 people. A fresh population of soldiers and civil servants was brought in to fill it.

  In 1815 Napoleon escaped exile on Elba for his Hundred Days. The Vendée refused to recognise him and stayed loyal to King Louis XVIII. General Lamarque led 10,000 men into the region to pacify it.

  A further rebellion came in 1832, in support of Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, duchess de Berry. She was the widowed daughter-in-law of the former King Charles X. The rising was an attempt to restore the Legitimist Bourbon dynasty, and it failed. The Orléanist monarch Louis Philippe of the French went on reigning until 1848.

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• 6. The War in Print

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  In 1850 the English author Anthony Trollope published a book called La Vendée, detailing the history of the region and the war. In its preface he pays tribute to Madame de la Rochejaquelein. He based his story on her memoirs of the war.

  Honoré de Balzac used the same conflict as the backdrop of his novel Les Chouans. The war also supplies an episode in Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. Victor Hugo gave it a still larger role. The War in the Vendée is the subject of Ninety-Three, called Quatrevingt-treize in French, which was the last novel Hugo wrote.

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• 7. Beaches and Marshes

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  The coast of the Vendée extends over 200 km of mostly sandy beaches, which draw tourists from overseas as well as from nearby. Les Sables-d'Olonne, La Tranche-sur-Mer and Saint-Jean-de-Monts are among the resorts. Some beaches are certified for the Blue Flag for cleanliness. Dunes and pine woods edge the sand, and there are several nude beaches, including one just south of La Faute sur Mer on the Pointe d'Arçay.

  Away from the shore, the department offers churches and abbeys, museums, and thousands of marked footpaths. A signposted bicycle route follows the coastal mudflats. Marshes attract unusual birds, and there is fishing in the rivers and lakes.

  Inland, the Marais Poitevin is an area of marshland famed for its wildlife. The forested area around the village of Mervent and the rolling countryside of the Bocage are also among the chief attractions. In the north, the historical theme park Puy du Fou attracts more than 1.45 million visitors per year.

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• 8. Work and Table

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  In a 2006 survey, L'Express magazine cited the Vendée as the most economically dynamic department in France. Unemployment stood at around 7% in late 2006, against more than 9% nationally. There was one business for every 14 inhabitants. The economy rests on tourism, agriculture, food processing, and light and medium industry.

  Among French departments, the Vendée has the second highest level of agricultural revenue. Its main arable crops are maize, colza, wheat and sunflowers. Meat and dairy production also feature, along with offshore farming of oysters and mussels. Poultry from Challans is highly regarded nationwide, and so is lamb from the salt marshes of the north. To reduce summer dependence on ground water, the Conseil Général has a stated policy of promoting irrigation reservoirs.

  Food processing adds to the picture. One manufacturer of ready-meals and charcuterie employs some 3000 people, the majority of its workforce, at local plants. Bakeries and biscuit producers are also employers. The department is the largest brioche producer in France, and the Brioche de Vendée, made in the Bocage, carries the Label Rouge. Its raw cured ham, Jambon de Vendée, is similar in flavour to bacon.

  On the plate, jambon-mogettes, which is ham with white beans, is the most famous Vendean dish. In the Plain of Luçon, préfou is a garlic bread served as an hors d'oeuvre. Duck from the marshland of the north-west is well known in the gastronomic world.

  Industry follows the tourist trade. Mobile homes are manufactured at plants in Luçon, and motor and sail yachts are built at locations all over the department.

  Wine is made around the communes of Vix, Brem, Pissotte and Mareuil-sur-Lay, and sold under the Fiefs Vendéens designation. It has already earned the classification Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieure. Quality has improved markedly in recent years, and the wines are on their way towards Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée status.

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