Vouvant et Mélusine

Vouvant, a village in the Vendée just 7 or 8 miles north of the big town of Fontenay-le-Comte, is the only fortified village in the département. In the 1200s, a huge fortress was built at Vouvant, but it fell into ruin over the centuries and most vestiges of it were obliterated in the mid-1800s.

It's all gone except one element, called La Tour Mélusine, built in 1242. This was the donjon of the demolished château-fort. According to legend, the 36-meter-tall  (120-ft.) tower was built by a mythical figure — a fairy — named Mélusine. The story says she built it overnight out of a few rocks and a mouthful of water.

The mythical Mélusine ended up married to Raimondin, the count of the Poitou province, who had accidentally stabbed his uncle as the two men were trying to kill a wild boar. The uncle died, and Raimondin, grief-stricken, was wandering aimlessly in a nearby forest when suddenly water bubbled up from the ground. Over the gushing new spring appeared the frail white silhouettes of three damsels, one of them Mélusine. Raimondin took her as his wife.

Mélusine had magical powers, and she kept them even after marrying a human.  She could just wave her wand and a new château would appear on the landscape.  She waved her legendary wand in many places — Lusignan, Pouzargues, Parthenay, Mervant, and Vouvant among them — creating  a collection of local fortresses and castles.

Alas, Mélusine had a secret. Having long ago murdered her father, she was condemned forever to be transformed into a femme-serpent — a snake woman — every Saturday of her life. No one was supposed to see her in this form, but one Saturday, Raimondin, in a fit of jealousy, broke down Mélusine's bedroom door and was horrified to find that his wife had been transformed into a mermaid and was washing her long golden tresses. 

Mélusine suddenly flew out the window, turned into a fearsome serpent, and circled the town and the castle three times before crashing into a tower and disappearing into thin air. In the photo above, you can see her above flying over the donjon she built in Vouvant. Anyway, all this is what I read in the French-language Michelin Guide this morning. Believe it or not.

Vouvant and Mélusine

Coming into Vouvant from the south, this is the view. This is one of the plus beaux villages de France. You see the church looming over the town. As you approach, you first see the chevet of the church.

Above is a detail of the stonework of the chevet.

The two photos just above show part of the lower (12th century) section of the church's north portal.
(Click or tap twice on each half of the image to enlarge to full size.)

One other landmark in Vouvant is a 13th century tower (donjon) known as the Tour Mélusine. Mélusine is a mythical fresh-water sprite or mermaid who was believed in several parts of France to live in certain wells and rivers. The tower is all that remains of a château that people in Vouvant believed had been constructed in the space of one day, or so I've read. By the way, one of our young neighbors is named Mélusine. I wonder if she's been to Vouvant. I'll have to ask her.

Vouvant : l'église

Vouvant, the only (I believe) fortified town in the Vendée, is also officially one of the most beautiful villages in France. Les plus beaux villages de France is an association to which villages apply to win that designation. It was created in 1982, and now 158 villages are members. The rules are strict.

The church in Vouvant dates back to the late 1000s and early 1100s. Like most French buildings, it has been significantly restored, enlarged, and rebuilt over the centuries. There were great wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants in the 1500s, and many old churches were laid to ruin. And then the French Revolution came, and further damage was done.  Still, the Vouvant church is historically significant and was one of the first churches in the Vendée to be classified as a historical monument. That happened in 1840.

Walt and I drove to Vouvant on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We had a picnic lunch on a park bench on the grounds of the old fortress, almost in the shadow of the Tour Mélusine. The Mélusine tower was erected nearly 200 years after the first church in Vouvant was built. Notice how in the photo above the church seems to be crowned with a halo.

We couldn't do much in terms of going inside places like the church and the tower because we were traveling with the dog, and it was too sunny and warm to leave Tasha in the car for even a short time. However, we could walk around and take in the scenery — in other words, take some pictures.

I really enjoy taking long zoom photos of historical monuments like these churches and then editing them to reveal details that I can't see with my naked eye. The photos above are examples. The carvings in my photos represent, on the lower level (in each photo), The Last Supper, and on the upper level, Christ's Ascension to Heaven. They are Gothic in style (1400s). You can enlarge them to see more details. It's pretty amazing that they have survived for so long, but then I don't know how many times they have been restored over the centuries..

La Rochelle: La Tour Saint-Nicolas

Two towers stand at the mouth of La Rochelle's vieux port. They are the Tour Saint-Nicolas on the left, and the Tour de la Chaîne on the right, in the photo below. We sat down in a café with the dog and had lunch here, with this as our view.

The Tour Saint-Nicolas was built in the 14th century and stands 42 meters (nearly 140 feet) tall. Saint Nicolas is the patron saint of sailors. Construction began around the year 1345. The tower leans slightly, according to the Michelin guide, but I'm not sure I noticed that. In later centuries, it was long used as a prison.

According to local legend, the mythical fée ("fairy") called Mélusine built the Saint-Nicolas tower in the Middle Ages. I wrote about such legends here, a few weeks ago. In reality, the massive tower was built on sandy, marshy ground on top of oak pilings set down into the muddy ground. Of course it started leaning. Work to stabilize it was done in the second half of the 14th century. It's hard to imagine what kind of work that would have been and how it was done. But it was basically a success.

This last shot is just a detail of the cobblestone walkways around the old port and the two towers. We walked all around the port for an hour or two before lunch the day we were there.