offices that can point you in the direction of (and often book for you) overnight accommodation that varies from five star hotels to village gîtes d’étape.
Background
The Loire passes through the heart of France. Modern France, the Fifth French Republic, is the current manifestation of a great colonial nation that developed out of Charlemagne’s eighth-century Frankish kingdom, eventually spreading its power throughout Europe and beyond.
Roman France
Before the arrival of the Romans in the first century BC, central France was inhabited by Iron Age Celtic tribes like the Gauls. The Romans involved local tribal leaders in government and control of the territory. With improvements in the standard of living, the conquered tribes soon became thoroughly romanised and Gallic settlements became Romano-Gallic towns. During the fourth century AD the Romans came under increasing pressure from Germanic tribes from the east, and by AD401 had withdrawn their legions from central France and the Loire Valley.
The Franks and the foundation of France
After the Romans left there followed a period of tribal settlement. The Franks were a tribe that settled in northern France. From AD496, when Clovis I became their king and established a capital in Paris, the Frankish kingdom expanded by absorbing neighbouring states. After Charlemagne (a Frank, AD768–AD814) temporarily united much of western Europe, only for his Carolingian empire to be split in AD843, the Franks became the dominant regional force. The kingdom of France grew by defeating and absorbing neighbouring duchies. In the Loire basin, Anjou was captured in 1214 and Auvergne was absorbed in 1271.
The Hundred Years’ War
One particular neighbour proved hard to defeat. Ever since Vikings settled in Normandy and around the mouth of the Loire in the ninth century there had been a threat from the west. The Vikings became the Normans, and when in 1066 they annexed England, their power base became larger. For nearly 400 years the Norman kings of England and their Plantagenet successors sought to consolidate and expand their territory in France. The main confrontation was the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) fought between France and an alliance of England and Burgundy. For many years the English and Burgundians had the upper hand, capturing large areas of France. The turning point came in 1429 when a French force led by a 17-year-old girl, Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc), succeeded in lifting the siege of Orléans. By 1453 the English had been driven almost completely out of France, consolidating the French monarchy as the dominant force in the region. When Burgundy (1477) and Brittany (1532) were absorbed, the French king controlled the entire Loire basin.
Rue Jeanne d’Arc leads to Orléans cathedral
The Wars of Religion and the Huguenots
The Protestant Reformation spread to France from Germany and Switzerland in the early 16th century and rapidly took hold, driven by a widespread perception of corruption among Catholic clergy. By mid-century many towns had substantial numbers of Protestant worshippers, known as Huguenots. This sparked violent reaction from devout Catholics led by the Duc de Guise, and between 1562 and 1598 France was convulsed by a series of ferocious wars between religious factions. It is estimated that between two million and four million people died as a result of war, famine and disease. The wars were ended by the Edict of Nantes, which granted substantial rights and freedoms to Protestants. However, this was not the end of the dispute. Continued pressure from Catholic circles gradually reduced these freedoms and in 1685 Louis XIV revoked the Edict. Thankfully this did not provoke renewed fighting, many Huguenots choosing to avoid persecution by emigrating to Protestant countries (particularly Switzerland, Britain and the Netherlands), but it had a very damaging effect on the national economy. Many of the towns passed in the Loire Valley suffered during these wars.
The age of the Kings
For 250 years from 1434, when Charles VII seized the château of Amboise (Stage 18), a succession of kings either lived in or spent a lot of time in their royal residences along the Loire and its nearby tributaries. Amboise became a favoured palace and an escape from the unhealthy climate and political intrigues of Paris for Louis XI (1461–1483) and Charles VIII (1483–1498), who rebuilt the château. Louis XII (1498–1515) ruled from Blois (Stage 17), where he had built the front part of the château. His successor François I (1515–1547) greatly enlarged Blois, although he preferred Amboise, which became his principal royal palace. François also commissioned the totally over-the-top Chambord (Stage 18) as a hunting lodge on the edge of the Sologne. Despite taking 28 years and 1800 men to build, it was used for less than seven weeks before being abandoned as impractical, following which it remained unfurnished and unused for 80 years. After François’s death his widow ruled from Chenonceau as regent for underage François II. When Henri III (1574–1589) was driven from Paris by the Wars of Religion he chose to rule from Blois, as did Henri IV (1589–1610). Louis XIII (1610–1643) returned the court permanently to Paris and gave all the royal châteaux in the Loire Valley to his brother, Gaston d’Orléans, who started to restore Chambord. This restoration was continued by the keen huntsman Louis XIV (1643–1715), who furnished the château only to abandon it again in 1685.
The French Revolution
The ancien régime French kingdom ended in a period of violent revolution (1789–1799). The monarchy was swept away and privileges enjoyed by the nobility and clergy removed. Monasteries and religious institutions were closed while palaces and castles were expropriated by the state. Many were demolished, but some survived, often serving as barracks or prisons. In place of the monarchy a secular republic was established. The revolutionary mantra of liberté, égalité, fraternité is still the motto of modern-day France. Chaos followed the revolution and a reign of terror resulted in an estimated 40,000 deaths, including that of King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. The west of France (Pays de Loire, Brittany and the Vendée), where resistance to the revolution was greatest, saw the highest number of executions outside of Paris. A coup in 1799 led to military leader Napoleon Bonaparte taking control.
The Duchess of Angoulême’s monument in Florent-le-Vieil commemorates 1000 victims of the French Revolution (Stage 24)
Napoleon Bonaparte
Despite ruling France for only 16 years, Napoleon (1769–1821) had a greater influence on the political and legal structures of the country than any other person. He made peace with the Catholic Church and allowed many exiled aristocrats to return, albeit with limited powers. In 1804 he declared himself Emperor of France and started a series of military campaigns that saw the French gain control briefly of much of western and central Europe. Perhaps the longest lasting Napoleonic reform was the Code Napoléon – a civil legal code that was adopted throughout the conquered territories and remains today at the heart of the European legal system. When he was defeated in 1815 by the combined forces of Britain and Prussia, he was replaced as head of state by a restoration of the monarchy under Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI.
French industrialisation
During the 19th century the French economy grew strongly, based on coal, iron and steel and heavy engineering. In the Loire basin, St Étienne (close to Stage 5) developed as a major coal mining centre while the iron works at Fourchambault (Stage 11) became the main producer of rails and girders for the expanding French railway and canal systems. A large overseas empire was created, mostly in Africa, and foreign trade saw Nantes (Stage 25) develop as the main port city on France’s Atlantic coast, with industry built around imported products like sugar and tobacco. More infamously, Nantes was the French centre of the triangular slave trade, supplying ships that took 550,000 slaves from Africa to the Americas. Larger ships that could not reach Nantes
