History of Brittany: Encyclopedia II - History of Brittany - Early modern Brittany

History of Brittany - Early modern Brittany

After 1532, Brittany retained a certain fiscal and regulatory autonomy, which was defended by the États de Bretagne despite the rising tide of royal absolutism. Brittany remained on the whole strongly Catholic during the period of the Huguenots and the Wars of Religion, although Protestantism made some headway in Nantes and a few other areas. From 1590-98, during the War of the Catholic League, the duc de Mercoeur (governor of Brittany and husband of the countess of Penthièvre) sought to have himself proclaimed Duke of Britanny and allied with Philip II of Spain. The latter, on the other hand, considered establishing his daughter Isabella at the head of a reconstituted Brittany. Henri IV, however, brought Mercoeur to an honourable surrender.

During the era of Colbert, Brittany benefited from France's naval expansion. Major ports were built or renovated at Saint-Malo, Brest, and Lorient, and Bretons came to consitute a leading component of the French navy. Bretons played an important role in the colonization of New France and the West Indies (see French colonisation of the Americas).

In 1675, insurgents in the diocese of Cornouaille and elsewhere rose up in the Revolt of the Bonnets Rouges. The rebels, in contact with Holland, were expecting assistance that never came. Sébastian Ar Balp, the leader of the rebellion, was assassinated by the Marquis de Montgaillard whom Ar Balp was holding prisoner. The rebellion was repressed by the duc de Chaulnes, and hundreds of Bretons were hanged or broken on the wheel. Madame de Sévigné claimed that French soldiers garrisoned in Rennes had roasted a Breton infant on a spit. A whole street in Rennes, suspected of seditiousness, was demolished leaving the inhabitants homeless.^ 

In the conspiracy of Pontcallec of 1720, members of the petty nobility in contact with Spain led a tax revolt against the Regency. The marquis de Pontcallec and six others were tried and executed in Nantes for the uprising.

During the 18th century, Nantes rose to become one of the most important commercial centres of France. The backbone of Nantes's prosperity was the Atlantic slave trade.

On 4 August 1789, the Constituant Assembly in Paris unanimously proclaimed the abolition of feudal privileges. These included the privileges of the provinces such as Brittany. Brittany thus lost the juridical existence, autonomy, Parlement, and administrative, fiscal and legal peculiarities guaranteed since the Edict of Union of 1532. Although the Breton Club in Paris had initiated the move to abolish feudal distinctions, the decision proved increasingly unpopular in Brittany, where the loss of local autonomy and the increasingly anti-clerical character of the Revolution were resented. Many Bretons took part in the Chouannerie, the royalist insurgency assisted by Great Britain and allied with the revolt in the Vendée. Brittany thus became a hotbed of resistance to the French Revolution.

The territory of Brittany was divided in 1789 into five départements, partially on the basis of earlier divisions called présidiaux which in turn had issued from mediaeval bailliages.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Early modern Brittany", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki