Château des ducs de Bretagne

Location: 47°12′57″N 1°33′0″W

Medieval states often did not have a capital in the modern sense. Rulers moved around a lot and lived in various places throughout their territories, but they usually had one main residence in an important city. In that sense, Nantes was the capital of the Duchy of Brittany. There were other castles elsewhere in Brittany, and other large and important cities which also served as "capitals", such as Rennes and Vannes. But as the usual residence of the dukes, Nantes naturally needed a large castle. The modern name of the castle, the "Château des ducs de Bretagne" reflects this necessity. It also reflects the sentiment that Nantes is still a part of Brittany, even though it was separated into a different province after the Revolution.

Remnants of the Maison des
Engins in Place du Bouffay.

Nantes' original castle was located in Le Bouffay, the ancient and medieval core of the city. That's where all narrow streets and tall wooden houses are located. When Nantes was recaptured from the Vikings in the 10th century, the first castle was built there, within the Roman walls. Parts of that castle remained intact up to the 18th century, but nothing remains of it now. There are some remnants of buildings that were attached to it in the modern Place du Bouffay, like the chimney from the Maison des Engins (Nantes' first city hall), and the Église Sainte-Croix, which was originally the castle's chapel. The sculpture on top of the church was part of the Tour du Bouffay, a medieval tower that has also been destroyed.

As I mentioned in previous posts, Brittany was independent, but almost always under either English or French influence. In the early 13th century, relatives of the king of France married into the ruling dynasty in Brittany. The French dukes built new walls, partly to improve the defences of the city, but partly also as a display of French influence. They also built a new castle.

The Vieux Donjon.

 The new castle was built along the southeast corner of the new walls (which in that part of the city simply followed the line of the Roman wall). The first structure built there no longer exists. The earliest remaining part of the castle, the "Vieux Donjon," was built in the mid-14th century, during the War of the Breton Succession and the Hundred Years' War between France and England. At first it seems like just another part of the castle, but looking at it more closely, it is obviously different from the rest. And looking directly to the north, you can see that it lines up exactly with the remains of the medieval and Roman walls on the Cours St-Pierre.

I assume the castle was connected to the system of medieval walls, but I'm now sure how. Some of the castle's walls have a distinctive pattern of stones, reminiscent of the Roman wall (but entirely in large grey stones, no small stones or red bricks). The remnant of Porte Sauvetout has the same pattern, but the other remnants of the medieval walls don't look like that. In any case, today the castle is a completely separate structure, and wherever it was connected to the walls, that connection no longer exists.

My son and I at the castle in 2011 (my wife is a much better
photographer than me and has a much better camera)

When I first arrived in Nantes and I lived in the residence for foreign researchers, I could see the cathedral and the castle in the distance. They were the only medieval remnants I knew about at the time, and it took me a few weeks to go visit them, because I didn't want to ruin the mystique. Actually the first time I went to the castle, my family and I were just wandering around the old city and happened to end up there by accident. It's not very big, for a French castle, but it was the biggest castle I had ever seen. (Of course, the only other castles I had seen were Casa Loma in Toronto and the Magic Kingdom in Disney World.)

The south wall and the modern artificial moat, on a rare
snowy day in 2012 (apparently this was the first time it had
snowed in Nantes in 16 years). Originally, the castle was
located on the banks of the Loire river, which has since been
diverted to the south.

It also looks like it's built into a ditch, at a lower level than the rest of the old town. The castle at Ancenis also looks like that, because the rest of the town has been built up on several layers of road since then. That has happened in Nantes too, but the courtyard of the castle is actually at the same level as the rest of the city. The foundations, however, are lower down because they used to be underwater. Before the north branches of the Loire were covered over in the 19th and 20th centuries, the castle used to sit right on the banks of the river, which was handy for defense and for controlling trade. The river also served as the castle's moat. There is still a

One of the towers (facing the old course of the Loire),
with its arrow/crossbow holes still visible.

shallow, artificial moat there, but the rest of it has been turned into a park, full of ducks and turtles. I assume that at least some of the walls surrounding the park (the ones not connected to the castle itself), were part of the medieval wall system, but I'm not entirely sure about that either.

The castle, along with the château de Pirmil on the south side of the Loire, and the various other castles stretching to the north and the east along the border with France, protected Nantes during the War of the Breton Succession and

The Conciergerie, one of the buildings constructed after
Brittany was annexed to France.

the Hundred Years' War. After France's victory in the Hundred Years' War in the 15th century, Brittany remained an independent duchy for another hundred years. The dukes of Brittany expanded the castle, constructing most of the buildings that still exist today, like the "Grand gouvernement" and the "Grand logis" and its tower, the large white buildings that are the most impressive part of the interior.

The Harnachement, another one of the later buildings.
I notice I have no pictures of the Grand Logis...
unfortunately it was too big for my camera.

The kings of France, however, had brought most of the rest of modern France under their direct control, and they were certainly not going to let Brittany remain independent forever. The duke, Francis II, had fought against France in the "Guerre folle", the "Crazy War", in the 1480s. He was defeated in 1488 and died later that year. His daughter, Anne, had married the Holy Roman Emperor, an enemy of France, but was forced to annul that marriage when she was taken prisoner by the French. Brittany was allowed to remain independent, but Anne then married the king of France, so the two nations were now united. Early in the 16th century, Brittany was officially annexed to France during the reign of Anne's daughter.

Anne, Duchess of Brittany and Queen
of France. This statue depicts her as a
typical Breton peasant, which she
definitely was not.

It's simple to say that the kings of France simply wanted Brittany because they had to fulfill their idea of what was supposed to be part of France.  But there was also another very good reason for having Brittany under royal control: it was full of port cities, and it was the closest part of the country to the Atlantic Ocean and the newly discovered North and South America.

Although I'm a medieval historian, but originally I wanted to study the history of the French colonies in Canada in the 17th century. To me, the castle in Nantes represents both of these interests. Those colonies would not have existed if France had not been able to send expeditions from the ports of Brittany. Jacques Cartier was from St-Malo in Brittany, and sailed for Canada in 1534, the same year that the duchy was officially annexed. Many of the settlers of New France were from Brittany, and today there is even a Quebec town named Nantes. 

The outline of one of the towers that
exploded in 1800. (The wood in the
background is just for flower boxes.)

Anyway, now that the castle was no longer necessary as a defense against France, it became the residence of the French governors of Brittany, as well as a secondary palace for the kings of France. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, new buildings were built in the courtyard, and the existing ones were refurbished. The castle was still used for defense during the Wars of Religion during the Reformation in the 16th century, and King Henry IV may have signed the Edict of Nantes there in 1598, temporarily granting religious freedom to French Protestants (until it was revoked about 90 years later). The Edict of Nantes was basically the only thing I knew about Nantes before I lived there. No one really knows where it was signed though. Another traditional spot was a house to the west of the old city (in the modern Médiathèque quarter), which was destroyed by bombing during World War II.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the castle was also a prison, as were many other castles and abbeys throughout France. In 1789, it was captured by revolutionaries after they learned about the fall of the Bastille in Paris. The Revolution was brutal in Nantes. The guillotine was set up on the site of the former castle in Place du Bouffay, and there were supposedly a lot of "Republican marriages", where men and women who were condemned to death were tied together and thrown into the Loire to drown. The counter-Revolution, the Vendée War between the revolutionaries and the royalists, ravaged the countryside around Nantes. The royalists were defeated at Nantes in 1793, one of the most important events of the Revolution.

In 1800, during the reign of Napoleon, one of the towers of the castle was being used as an artillery depot. The tower exploded, destroying a large part of the castle and the city (including all the windows of the cathedral). The damage is still visible in the castle, as there is an obvious missing tower (otherwise, it would be symmetrical, as it would match the tower on the opposite side), and the parts that had exploded were rebuilt with simple bricks in a completely different style. The foundations of the exploded tower and of the parts of the wall that were destroyed are still visible in the ground, and there are now a garden inside of them.

The castle full of tourists in July, 2012.

Since the early 20th century the castle has been used as a museum. The current museum covers the entire history of Nantes. It starts at the bottom of the Grand gouvernement and Grand logis, and works its way up through history until you reach the top floors. The bottom two floors are the most interesting for me, dealing with the prehistoric, Roman, and medieval periods. Unfortunately (for me), the events that the city considers to be most important all happened after that. Nantes was a major port in the Atlantic slave trade, so a lot of the museum deals with that (and in 2012 a new museum opened in the western part of the city, dedicated specifically to slavery). There is also a lot of fascinating stuff about Nantes during World War II. It's all very interesting, and a fun way to spend a day, but it really takes almost the whole day to appreciate the entire museum. On one floor there is an interactive computer program that lets you explore Nantes as it may have looked in the 18th century. I may have spent hours wandering through that program alone.

You can always walk around the walls for free, but the museum usually costs money. It's free on Sundays, except during tourist season in July and August.

 

History museum

Here are some interesting things in the history museum:

Since I was unable to take a picture of the whole castle, here is a model of the entire thing:

And here is a model of medieval Nantes, within the expanded walls of the 13th century (in the background is a 16th-century tapestry):









Another thing the Loire was useful for was waste disposal. Here is a medieval toilet, opening right over the river:
















I didn't take many other pictures, since there are dozens of rooms and most of it is about Nantes' more recent history. But here is a pirate treasure from the 18th century. It's right out in the open, so I absent-mindedly tried to open the chest, until a security guard told me not to touch it:

Now that I am writing this, I wish I had taken far more pictures of all the interesting parts of the castle. I walked past it on the way to work and back every day, and I guess I started taking it for granted. I thought I could go back and take pictures whenever I wanted, but now I can't, and there are lots of things I wish I could illustrate better here.