Saint-Malo
Saint-Malo is a walled
port city in
Brittany in northern
France on the
English Channel. It is a
sous-préfecture of the
Ille-et-Vilaine département.
Saint-Malo has 50,000 inhabitants, but that number can increase to up to 200,000 in the summer tourist season. With the suburbs, the population is about 135,000.
Saint-Malo during the
Middle Ages was a fortified island at the mouth of the
Rance River, controlling not only the
estuary but the open sea beyond. The promontory fort of Aleth, south of the modern centre in what is now the
Saint-Servan district, commanded approaches to the Rance even before the
Romans, but modern Saint-Malo traces its origins to a
monastic settlement founded by
Saint Aaron and
Saint Brendan early in the
6th century. Its name is derived from a man said to have been a follower of Brendan,
Saint Malo.
In later centuries it became notorious as the home of a fierce breed of pirate-mariners, who were never quite under anyone's control but their own; for 4 years from
1590, Saint-Malo even declared itself to be an independent
republic, taking up the motto "not French, not Breton, but Malois". The
Corsairs of Saint-Malo not only forced English ships passing up the Channel to pay tribute, but also brought wealth from further afield.
Jacques Cartier, who sailed the
St Lawrence river and visited the sites of
Quebec City and
Montréal - and is thus credited as the discoverer of
Canada, lived in and sailed from Saint-Malo, as did the first colonists to settle the
Falklands â€" hence the islands'
Argentinian name,
Las Malvinas, from the French
Malouins.
Saint Malo was the site of an
Anglo-
French summit which lead to a significant agreement regarding
European defence policy. British Prime Minister
Tony Blair and French President
Jacques Chirac stated that "the [European] Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises".
Now inseparably attached to the
mainland, Saint-Malo is the most visited place in Brittany. Sites of interest include:
*The top optional beach on the English Channel
*The
walled city (
La Ville Intra-Muros)
*The
château of Saint-Malo
*The tomb of the writer
Chateaubriand on the Ile de Grand Bé
*The
Cathedral of
St. Vincent |
View up a typical city street towards the cathedral |
 |
Cathedral window |
Saint-Malo was the birthplace of:
*
Jacques Cartier (1491-1557),
explorer of
Canada.
*
Jacques Gouin de Beauchene (1652-1730),
explorer of the
Falkland Islands*
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-1759),
mathematician and
astronomer*
La Bourdonnais (1699-1753), sailor and administrator
*
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848), writer and diplomat
*
Hughes Felicité Robert de Lamennais (1782-1854), priest, philosophical and political writer
*
Mont-Saint-Michel* http://www.ville-saint-malo.fr/
*
Visiting St-Malo - English
* http://jersey.typepad.com/st_malo
*
St. Malo: Capital of the corsaires Images and information
