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 led to the development of the port city of St Nazaire (Stage 26) right at the river mouth; this became (and still is) an important shipbuilding centre.
Twentieth-century France
Despite being on the winning side, the French economy was devastated by the First World War and the depression of the 1930s. Invasion by Germany in the Second World War saw the French army retreat south across the Loire. Almost all Loire bridges were destroyed either by the retreating army or by German bombing that also damaged many riverside towns – Gien (Stage 14) being particularly badly hit. Surrender saw France temporarily partitioned, with all of southern France becoming part of Vichy – a nominally independent state that was in reality a puppet government controlled by the Germans. In St Nazaire the occupying Germans built an impregnable submarine pen that was so vigorously defended that the city was the last in France to be liberated.
After the war, France was one of the original signatories to the Treaty of Rome (1957), which established the European Economic Community (EEC) and led to the European Union (EU). Economic growth was strong and the French economy prospered. Political dissent, particularly over colonial policy, led to a new constitution and the establishment of the Fifth Republic under Charles de Gaulle in 1958. Subsequent withdrawal from overseas colonies has led to substantial immigration into metropolitan France from ex-colonies, creating the most ethnically diverse population in Europe. Since the 1970s old heavy industry has almost completely disappeared and been replaced with high-tech industry and employment in the service sector.
Shipping on the river
The Loire is only properly navigable below its junction with the Maine near Angers (Stage 22). Above here the river is classed as sauvage: a wild river with shifting sandbanks, rapids at high water-flow and shallows when the flow is low with no locks or cuts to avoid them. In the past, before railways and roads provided a viable alternative, barges floating downstream took merchandise (mostly coal from St Étienne coalfield) from St Rambert (Stage 5). As river conditions prevented any up-stream navigation, these were one-way trips with the barges being broken up at the end of the voyage. Bi-directional trade was possible up to Roanne (Stage 6) only when river conditions were favourable, but became possible year-round when canals that ran parallel with the