Josselin

[ardcarp]

Mrs A and I have just returned from one of Brittany Ferries' 'short breaks' in Josselin. What a lovely part of Brittany this is, so different from the crinkly bits around the edge that we know so well. It's on the Nantes-Brest canal; ill-named as you can't get to Brest because of a reservoir which has blocked its route. However, it and the La Riviere Oust (which has been co-opted as part of it) is tranquil and pittoresque in its Autumn colours.

There is a rather impressive chateau there, which has clearly been much restored. It is lived in by the Rohan family who were movers and shakers in Brittany's history from medieval times. I've never been quite sure how aristocratic families survived La Revolution. So if anyone knows how this apparent contradiction to egalité and fraternité works, I'd love to know.

[vinteuil]

There is a rather impressive chateau there, which has clearly been much restored. It is lived in by the Rohan family who were movers and shakers in Brittany's history from medieval times. I've never been quite sure how aristocratic families survived La Revolution. So if anyone knows how this apparent contradiction to egalité and fraternité works, I'd love to know.

... the Rohans emigrated following the Revolution, returning to France under Napoleon. Various aristocratic families either emigrated or managed to lie low, then emerging and adapting to changing circumstances - either under Napoleon or after the Restoration.

It was fertile territory for Balzac...

Here is the wiki page for one of the Rohans who lived thro' that period :

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre-Louis-Auguste_de_Rohan-Chabot

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[Alain Maréchal]

There is a rather impressive chateau there, which has clearly been much restored. It is lived in by the Rohan family who were movers and shakers in Brittany's history from medieval times. I've never been quite sure how aristocratic families survived La Revolution. So if anyone knows how this apparent contradiction to egalité and fraternité works, I'd love to know.

In some areas, notably Bretagne, Vendée, Auvergne, feudal and religious loyalty added to detestation of Parisians* led to anti-revolutionary activity. Near Riom a Duchess woke one day to find her château gates being sealed by a revolutionary commissaire who informed her she was listed as an aristocratic emigrée and so had forfeited her property. She attended the tribunal and pointed out that the evidence of their eyes was that she had not emigrated. They agreed and restored her property to her. Later they investigated the original denunciation which claimed that her coach bearing her well-known arms had been observed fleeing by night, and it dawned on them that probably local villagers had ignored or even aided the flight of an even more august personage.

* I am reminded that the Revolution was more or less instigated by Parisian Lawyers - so combining two classes still heartily detested by the majority of the French.

[ardcarp]

Thanks both!