La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: La Rochéle) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With 78,535 inhabitants in 2021, La Rochelle is the most populated commune in the department and ranks fourth in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region after Bordeaux, the regional capital, Limoges and Poitiers.
Situated on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, the city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988. Since the Middle Ages the harbour has opened onto a protected strait, the Pertuis d'Antioche, and is regarded as a "porte océane" or gateway to the ocean because of the presence of its three ports (fishing, trade and yachting). The city has a strong commercial tradition, having an active port from very early on in its history.
The city traces its origins to the Gallo-Roman period, attested by the remains of important salt marshes and villas. The Dukes of Aquitaine granted it a charter as a free port in 1130. With the opening of the English market following the second marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, the presence of the Knights Templar and the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem quickly made this small town the largest port on the Atlantic.
To this day, the city still possesses a rich historical fabric, including the Saint-Nicholas tower, and an urban heritage. The capital of Aunis, it has become the most important coastal city between the Loire and Gironde estuaries. La Rochelle's urban activities are many in number and strongly differentiated, being a city with port and industrial functions that are still important, but also including a predominantly administrative and tertiary sector that is reinforced by the University of La Rochelle and a rapidly developing tourism industry. In the early 21st century, the city has consistently been ranked among France's most liveable cities. Until 2015, the town was part of the administrative region called Poitou-Charentes, prior to the delimitation of regions in France.
History
Antiquity
The Romans subsequently occupied the area, where they developed salt production along the coast. Roman villas have been found at Saint-Éloi and at Les Minimes. Salt evaporation ponds dating from the same period have also been found.
Foundation The name was first recorded in 961 as Rupella, from a Latin diminutive meaning 'little rock'. It was later known as Rocella and Roscella before the name took on its current form. The establishment of La Rochelle as a harbour was a consequence of the victory of Duke Guillaume X of Aquitaine over Isambert de Châtelaillon in 1130, and the subsequent destruction of his harbour of Châtelaillon.Reformation in La Rochelle: tradition and change in early modern Europe by Judith Chandler Pugh Meyer p.19 Google Books In 1137, Guillaume X to all intents and purposes made La Rochelle a free port and gave it the right to identify as a commune.
Fifty years later Eleanor of Aquitaine upheld the communal charter promulgated by her father. For the first time in France, a city mayor was appointed for La Rochelle, Guillaume de Montmirail. Guillaume was assisted in his responsibilities by 24 municipal magistrates, and 75 nobles who had jurisdiction over the inhabitants.
Plantagenet rule (1154–1224)
Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet in 1152, who became king of England as Henry II in 1154, thus putting La Rochelle under Plantagenet rule, until Louis VIII captured it in the 1224 siege of La Rochelle. During the Plantagenet control of the city in 1185, Henry II had the Vauclair castle built, remains of which are still visible in the Place de Verdun.Bradshaw's illustrated travellers' hand book in [afterw.] to France by George Bradshaw Google Books
The main activities of the city were in the areas of maritime commerce and trade, especially with England, the Low Countries and Spain. In 1196, wealthy bourgeois Alexandre Auffredi sent a fleet of seven ships to Africa seeking wealth. He went bankrupt awaiting the return of his ships; they returned seven years later bearing riches.
Knights Templar The Knights Templar had a strong presence in La Rochelle since before the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who exempted them from duties and gave them mills in her 1139 Charter. La Rochelle was the Templars' largest base on the Atlantic Ocean, and where they stationed their main fleet. From La Rochelle, they were able to act as intermediaries in trade between England and the Mediterranean. A popular thread of conspiracy theory originating with Holy Blood, Holy Grail has it that the Templars used a fleet of 18 ships which had brought Jacques de Molay from Cyprus to La Rochelle to escape arrest in France. The fleet allegedly left laden with knights and treasures just before the issue of the warrant for the arrest of the Order in October 1307.
Hundred Years' War Royal property since 1271, the 1293 sacking of La Rochelle by the Bayonnais during an outbreak of reciprocal piracy between English and French (particularly Norman) sailors was one of the main charges of King PhilipIV against King EdwardI when he declared the Duchy of Aquitaine forfeit to the French crown, prompting the 1294–1303 Gascon War whose peace terms produced the marriage that led to EdwardIII's later claims to the French crown.
Following the Treaty of Brétigny during the Hundred Years' War, La Rochelle again came under the rule of the English monarch in 1360. La Rochelle however expelled the English in June 1372, following the naval Battle of La Rochelle, between Castilian-French and English fleets. The French and Spanish decisively defeated the English, securing French control of the Channel for the first time since the Battle of Sluys in 1340. The naval battle of La Rochelle was one of the first cases of the use of handguns on warships, which were deployed by the French and Spanish against the English. Having recovered freedom, La Rochelle refused entry to Du Guesclin, until Charles V recognized the privileges of the city in November 1372.
In 1402, the French adventurer Jean de Béthencourt left La Rochelle and sailed along the coast of Morocco to conquer the Canary Islands.
Until the 15th century, La Rochelle was to be the largest French harbour on the Atlantic coast, dealing mainly in wine, salt and cheese.
French Wars of Religion
During the Renaissance, La Rochelle adopted Protestant ideas. Calvinism propagated in the region, and was suppressed through the Cours présidiaux tribunals established by Henry II, with two heretics burnt at the stake in La Rochelle in 1552. Conversions to Calvinism continued, partly aligned with political resistance to royal power by the local elite, and a popular opposition to taxes and requisitions in the royal building projects to fortify the coast against England.
On the initiative of Gaspard de Coligny, the French Calvinist community (Huguenots) attempted to colonise the New World to find a new home for their religion, with the likes of Pierre Richier and Jean de Léry. After the short-lived attempt of France Antarctique and a failed colony in Brazil, they finally resolved to make a stand in La Rochelle itself.Fortress of the soul: violence, metaphysics, and material life by Neil Kamil p.133 Google Books Pierre Richier became "Ministre de l'église de la Rochelle" ("Minister of the Church of La Rochelle") when he returned from Brazil in 1558, and was able to considerably increase the Huguenot presence in La Rochelle, from a small base of about 50 souls who had been secretly educated in the Lutheran faith by Charles de Clermont the previous year. He has been described, by Lancelot Voisin de La Popelinière, as "the father of the church of La Rochelle".
La Rochelle and Rouen were the first French cities to experience iconoclastic riots in 1560, at the time of the suppression of the Amboise conspiracy, before the riots spread to many other cities. Further cases iconoclasm broke out in La Rochelle from 30 May 1562, following the Massacre of Vassy. Protestants pillaged churches, destroyed images and statues, and also assassinated 13 Catholic priests in the Tower of the Lantern.Fortress of the soul: violence, metaphysics, and material life by Neil Kamil p.148 Google Books
From 1568, La Rochelle became a centre for the Huguenots, and the city declared itself an independent Reformed Republic on the model of Geneva,Fortress of the soul: violence, metaphysics, and material life by Neil Kamil p.149 Google Books a "state within a state". This led to numerous conflicts with the Catholic royal government. The city supported the Protestant movement of William of Orange in the Netherlands, and from La Rochelle the Dutch under Louis of Nassau and the Sea Beggars sailed to raid Spanish shipping.The rise and fall of Renaissance France, 1483–1610 by Robert Jean Knecht p.355 Google BooksThe Counter-Reformation and price revolution, 1559–1610 Richard Bruce Wernham p.288 Google Books
In 1571 the city suffered a blockade by the French Navy commanded by Filippo di Piero Strozzi and Antoine Escalin des Aimars, a former protagonist of the Franco-Ottoman alliance. The French Wars of Religion broke out following the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in August 1572, and the blockade escalated to the siege of La Rochelle (1572–1573), along with other sieges of Protestant cities such as the Sancerre. The conflict ended with the 1573 Peace of La Rochelle, which restricted the Protestant worship to the three cities of Montauban, Nîmes and La Rochelle. Pierre Richier died in La Rochelle in 1580.
Huguenot rebellions
Under Henry IV and the regency of his son Louis XIII, the city enjoyed a certain freedom and prosperity. However, La Rochelle entered into conflict with the authority of the adult Louis, beginning with a 1622 revolt. A fleet from La Rochelle fought a royal fleet of 35 ships under Charles, Duke of Guise, in front of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, but was defeated on 27 October 1622, leading to the signing of the Peace of Montpellier.
Revolt of Soubise (1625)
In 1625, a new Huguenot revolt led by Duke Henri de Rohan and his brother Soubise led to the Capture of Ré island by the forces of Louis XIII. Soubise conquered large parts of the Atlantic coast, but the supporting fleet of La Rochelle was finally defeated by Montmorency, as was Soubise with 3,000 men, when he led a counter-attack against the royal troops who had landed on the island of Ré.Penny cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge Page 268 Google Books
Siege of La Rochelle (1627–1628)
Following these events, Louis XIII and his Chief Minister Cardinal Richelieu declared the suppression of the Huguenot revolt the first priority of the kingdom. The English came to the support of La Rochelle, starting the Anglo-French War, by sending a major expedition under the Duke of Buckingham. The expedition however ended in a fiasco for England with the siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré. Meanwhile, cannon shots were exchanged on 10 September 1627 between La Rochelle and Royal troops, provoking the siege in which Cardinal Richelieu blockaded the city for 14 months, until the city surrendered and lost its mayor and its privileges. The siege forms much of the backdrop to the later chapters of Alexandre Dumas' classic novel, The Three Musketeers.
In November 1661, one of the first independent acts of King Louis XIV was to expel 300 La Rochelle Huguenot families, whose property purchases had drawn Catholic resentment.
The growing persecution of the Huguenots culminated with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685. Many Huguenots emigrated, founding such cities as New Rochelle in the vicinity of today's New York in 1689.
La Rochelle and the New World