La Rochelle
La Rochelle is famous as the capital of French Protestantism, but its history also dramatically illustrates how religious intolerance interferes with commercial prosperity. Built on a rocky outcrop in marshland on the Atlantic coast of France back in the tenth century, Atlantic trade in salt and wine sowed the seeds of prosperity. In the sixteenth century, as elsewhere in northern Europe, merchants and tradesman were susceptible to the new ideas of the Reformation. In the seventeenth century, the religious wars that gripped northern Europe produced a turbulent period in the town's history, with La Rochelle oscillating between Catholicism and Protestantism. In 1628, Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu ordered a siege of the town that, in spite of the heroic resistance organized by the town's mayor, Jean Guiton, decimated the population and ruined trade. In the eighteenth century prosperity revived, based on transatlantic trade: sugar from the West Indies and furs from Quebec. The French Revolution saw persecution of the Catholics, as non-juring monks, priests and nuns were put into barges that were deliberately sunk off the coast, the notorious "noyades" or drownings of the years of Terror. The nineteenth century saw a consolidation of commercial prosperity for the town, but in the middle of the twentieth century it fell to the Nazis who established a major submarine base in the harbor and engaged in anti-Semitism. The development of the European Union in the second half of the twentieth century, burying the hatchet between France and Germany and guaranteeing religious toleration as a human right in the European Court, has enabled La Rochelle to enter the twenty-first century with renewed confidence. The old harbor is now the biggest yachting marina on the European Atlantic coast and the new deep-water out port of La Pallice, where the M.S. Endeavour docked for the afternoon, is now the fifth largest port by volume in France.
La Rochelle is famous as the capital of French Protestantism, but its history also dramatically illustrates how religious intolerance interferes with commercial prosperity. Built on a rocky outcrop in marshland on the Atlantic coast of France back in the tenth century, Atlantic trade in salt and wine sowed the seeds of prosperity. In the sixteenth century, as elsewhere in northern Europe, merchants and tradesman were susceptible to the new ideas of the Reformation. In the seventeenth century, the religious wars that gripped northern Europe produced a turbulent period in the town's history, with La Rochelle oscillating between Catholicism and Protestantism. In 1628, Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu ordered a siege of the town that, in spite of the heroic resistance organized by the town's mayor, Jean Guiton, decimated the population and ruined trade. In the eighteenth century prosperity revived, based on transatlantic trade: sugar from the West Indies and furs from Quebec. The French Revolution saw persecution of the Catholics, as non-juring monks, priests and nuns were put into barges that were deliberately sunk off the coast, the notorious "noyades" or drownings of the years of Terror. The nineteenth century saw a consolidation of commercial prosperity for the town, but in the middle of the twentieth century it fell to the Nazis who established a major submarine base in the harbor and engaged in anti-Semitism. The development of the European Union in the second half of the twentieth century, burying the hatchet between France and Germany and guaranteeing religious toleration as a human right in the European Court, has enabled La Rochelle to enter the twenty-first century with renewed confidence. The old harbor is now the biggest yachting marina on the European Atlantic coast and the new deep-water out port of La Pallice, where the M.S. Endeavour docked for the afternoon, is now the fifth largest port by volume in France.
