Royan
Royan is a commune and town in the south-west of France, in the department of Charente-Maritime in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. Capital of the Côte de Beauté, Royan is one of the main French Atlantic coastal resort towns, and has five beaches, a marina for over 1,000 boats, and an active fishing port. As of 2013, the population of the greater urban area was 48,982. The town had 19,029 inhabitants in 2021.
Royan is located on the peninsula of Arvert, at the mouth of the Gironde estuary on its eastern shore. Royan was once of strategic importance, coveted in particular by the Visigoths and the Vikings. During the Reformation the city became a Protestant stronghold, and was besieged and destroyed by King Louis XIII. During the Bourbon Restoration, and especially during the Second Empire, Royan was celebrated for its sea baths. It attracted many artists during the Roaring Twenties.
Allied bombing between September 1944 and April 1945 destroyed the town. Known then as the "martyred city", it was declared a "Laboratory of research on urbanism", and it is now a showcase of the Modernist architecture of the 1950s. It was classified as a Town of Art and History in 2010. Royan today is a tourist and cultural hub, with some 90,000 visitors each summer season.
Geography
Royan is a seaside resort town situated in the west of the department of Charente-Maritime, in the former province of Saintonge. It lies near the Atlantic coast on the eastern shore of the mouth of the Gironde, Europe's largest estuary. Along the coastline of the commune, limestone cliffs alternate with the five beaches known locally as conches.Geology
The town of Royan is built on a calcareous rock plateau dating from the Cretaceous Period. It is bounded by the Pousseau marshes to the north and the Pontaillac marshes to the west. The estuary, the cliffs and the conches were shaped approximately 66 million years ago by the folding of limestone layers as the Alps and the Pyrenees formed.Transport
Road
Royan is approximately from the administrative capital of the department, La Rochelle, by departmental road D 733 and national road 137. It is from Bordeaux by departmental road D 730 and the A10 freeway, and from Paris. Between Royan and the town of Saintes, the historic capital of Saintonge and an important centre of art and history, travel time on the RN 150 is just under half an hour.Train
Royan SNCF railway station is the terminus of a line connecting the town to Saintes, Angoulême, and Niort.Across the Gironde estuary, the station of La Pointe-de-Grave at Le Verdon-sur-Mer connects through the Médoc region to Bordeaux-Saint-Jean station.
The Tramways de Royan provided mainly passenger transport along the coast from 1890 to 1945 and partially even longer.
Airports
The conurbation of Royan does not have its own airport. away, Rochefort-Saint-Agnant Airport offers flights to several European destinations, including the British Isles. La Rochelle – Île de Ré Airport is away. to the south, Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport provides international connections.Ferry
A ferry provides bicycle, car and lorry transport across the Gironde estuary to Le Verdon-sur-Mer in the Médoc region. The crossing takes about 30 minutes.Climate
The climate is oceanic: rainfall is relatively moderate in autumn and in winter and the winters are mild. Sea breezes keep summer temperatures moderate. Two winds, the north-westerly noroît and the south-westerly suroît, blow in from the ocean and along the coast of the department. The very high average insolation of 2,250 hours a year is comparable to the French Riviera.Charente-Maritime was the department most affected by Cyclone Martin on 27 December 1999. Winds speeds of up to were recorded on the island of Oléron, and in Royan, with severe damage to local buildings, woodland and harbour facilities.
History
Prehistory and antiquity
The site of Royan has been occupied since prehistoric times, as evidenced by archaeological finds of knapped flint. The Santones, a Celtic people, were early arrivals on the peninsula of Arvert. The Romans developed vineyards, oyster farming, and the saltern technique for salt production. The poet Tibullus celebrates the coast after the victory of his patron, the general Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, and the poet Ausonius built a villa here. The Visigoths arrived in Saintes in 418. In 419, defensive walls were built around Royan. Gregory of Tours mentions the usurpation of the church of Royan by the Arian Visigoths. In the summer of 844, the Vikings came up the Gironde, plundering everything in their path.Middle Ages
At the beginning of the 11th century, a precarious peace returned to the peninsula. Small fiefdoms and abbeys emerged. Between 1050 and 1075, the Prieuré de Saint-Vivien de Saintes built the Saint Pierre priory on the Saint-Pierre plateau, two kilometres from Royan and a small settlement grew there. In 1092, the Grande-Sauve Abbey built the Saint Nicolas priory nearby, on the Foncillon rock on the coast. A small castle in Royan protected the beach of Grande Conche, used as a harbour. Harbour activity was significant by the end of the 11th century, and many vessels used the Gironde estuary as a stopping point while waiting for favourable winds or currents. The Lord of Didonne took advantage of this to impose a tax on any boat mooring at the foot of the castle.In 1137, Eleanor of Aquitaine married King Louis VII of France. Royan became part of the Duchy of Aquitaine, under direct royal control. In 1152, the marriage was annulled and Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, who became King Henry II of England in 1154. Royan passed into English control.
The English king strengthened the town's defences with robust bulwarks and a solid keep. The various taxes paid by ships in the 13th century were codified by the Lords of Royan in 1232 as the Custom of Royan. On May 20, 1242, King Henry III of England, at war with King Louis IX of France, landed at Royan with 300 knights. Although defeated at Taillebourg, under the Treaty of Paris the English retained control of the south of Saintonge, and with it the town of Royan. In 1355, during the Hundred Years' War, the Black Prince, heir to the throne of England, occupied Saintonge and further strengthened Royan's defences. Royan became a large town, administered by twelve magistrates and twelve councillors. In 1451, at the end of the Hundred Years' War, the region had become definitively French but the town was in ruins.
In 1458, Marie de Valois, natural daughter of King Charles VII of France and his mistress Agnès Sorel, married Olivier de Coëtivy, Count of Taillebourg. She brought a dowry of 12,000 écus and the fiefdoms, or châtellenies, of Royan and Mornac. In 1501, by his marriage to Louise de Coëtivy, Charles de la Trémoille became Baron of Royan. Commerce developed in the town, but access was made difficult by the town's fortifications. From the beginning of the 16th century, a new quarter developed along the beachfront.
During the French Wars of Religion in the 16th century, many of the great captains of the time fought beneath the walls of the citadel, among them Henri de Navarre, who would become King Henry III of Navarre and then King Henry IV of France, and Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, later a prior of Saint-Pierre-de-Royan). In 1592, Henry IV made the town a marquisate, granted to Gilbert de la Trémoille. At the beginning of the 17th century, Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, the first Duke of Épernon, considered Royan "one of better places of its size in France". After the signing of the Edict of Nantes in 1598, it became a Protestant stronghold.
The town was besieged a first time in 1622 by King Louis XIII, but resisted. A second siege in 1623 caused great hardship. Many inhabitants abandoned the city and were banned from returning. The garrison was forced to surrender. In 1631, Cardinal Richelieu ordered the levelling of the town; the citadel was dismantled, and the ditches were filled in. The city, which no longer had a church, was associated with the rural parish of Saint Pierre.
After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a majority of the population emigrated, many people going to the Dutch Republic. Persecution continued under King Louis XV. A great storm in 1735 destroyed the harbour embankment, and navigation was not restored until the 19th century.
French Revolution
On 22 December 1789, the National Constituent Assembly set up in the early stages of the French Revolution voted for the administrative division of France into departments in place of the former provinces. The department of Charente-Inférieure was created on 4 March 1790 with the entry into force of this law. Each department was subdivided into districts, and each district into cantons. Royan became the administrative centre of its canton.Royan elected a city council at that time, chaired by Daniel Renaud, a Protestant, and mayor Nicolas-Thérese Vallet of Salignac. On July 12, 1790, the National Constituent Assembly passed a law, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which subordinated the Catholic Church to the government. The priests of the parishes of Royan, Vaux and Saint-Sulpice refused to take an obligatory oath of allegiance to France under this law, so joining the group of "refractory priests" condemned to deportation.
Throughout the country, church properties were seized. In Royan, the 1622 convent of the Récollets, set in grounds of, was put up for sale. It was bought on 25 February 1791, and then demolished, by shipowner Jean Boisseau.
As elsewhere, economic crisis caused growing dissatisfaction in Royan. To counter this, patriotic clubs were formed. On 14 July 1790, on the occasion of the first Festival of the Federation after the creation of the First French Republic had little impact in the area, and few of the local nobles were affected.