Nantes, an old, rich and considerable city in France, the second in Brittany, with a suffragan diocese of Tours and a university. The city is situated 15 leagues southwest of Angers, 27 northwest of La Rochelle, 87 southwest of Paris and 23 southeast of Rennes. Following Cassini, it is at longitude 15.52.45 latitude 47.13.10 .

This city, which the Latins call Condivienum, civitas Namnetum , Namnet a, is on the Loire and the Ardre rivers, providing a favorable situation for trade. In fact, the port is one of the most considerable in the kingdom. It is an old city, mentioned by Strabo, Caesar, Pliny, and Ptolemy. It was the sometimes residence of the Dukes of Brittany: they resided in the Saint Hermine castle, which remains today.

It is said that Saint Clair [1] was the first bishop of Nantes , around the year 277; however, his successors were not spoken about before bishop Nonnechius, who attended the council of Vannes in 468. The bishopric generates 35 to 40 thousand pounds of annual income, and comprises 212 parishes and eight abbeys.

The University of Nantes was founded around the year 1460, but it is the university of commerce that stands out in this city; they equip several vessels every year for the slave trade in the French colonies. The output of all kinds of goods is easier and livelier in Nantes than in other cities of the kingdom. They have, with the merchants of Bilbao [Spain], a private company called the contractation of which the reciprocal courts take the form of consular jurisdiction.  [2]

The county of Nantes is divided into two parts by the Loire river; the one called the outre-Loire is on the left bank, and the other, below the Loire is on the right bank.

Salt is produced in very large quantities in the country of Nantes, either at the bay of Bourgneuf, or in the salt marshes of Guérande and Le Croisic.

Anne of Brittany, whose history we know, was born in Nantes in 1476, and died in 1513. The destiny of this princess, as noted by President Hénault, was very strange. She was the wife of Charles VIII, but only after having petitioned for a type of divorce from Maximilien, [3] whom she had married by proxy, and she only married Louis XII once he obtained divorce from his first wife Jeanne. [4] He married Jeanne in the teeth of violent protests on the part of Louis XI. When Charles VIII died, Louis XII asked the pope for his marriage to be annulled; and on the assertion that the marriage with Jeanne had not been consummated, the annulment was granted. It is said that Louis XII married Anne of Brittany for love; but Varillas, whose authority cannot always be rejected, thinks that this could be as much a political coup as a matter of passion. It was understood in the treaty concluded with the states of Brittany, that if Charles VIII died without children before the duchess, she would marry his successor.

Her spirit and beauty have often been praised, but the piety of Anne of Brittany is another matter. I am well aware that she founded the Bonshommes, and that she disapproved of the war that the king made on the Holy Father; but people swear to me that her relentless hatred of the Marshal of Gié and the Countess of Angoulême were none too Christian.

M. Hénault speaks about another singular thing affecting Louis XII and Anne of Brittany. She loved Louis XII whom she married after the death of her husband; and yet she was so touched by the death of Charles VIII that she wore black mourning for him, even though Queens until that time always wore white. On the other hand, Louis XII, her second husband, who also wore black mourning against custom, remarried the following year with Mary of England, [5] whose love cost her her life. Anne of Brittany, on the death of Charles VIII put a knotted cord on her coat of arms, and this custom has been preserved.

Nantes has not been too fertile in men of letters, and my memory supplies me with only two in the last century, M. le Pays and M. de la Croze.

Le Pays, René , a French poet, was born in Nantes in 1636. His spirit was easy, lively and agreeable; he composed in verse and prose with ease. In 1664, he published letters and poems under the title of amitiés, amours et amourettes . He took Mr. Despréaux’s mockery like a gallant man: it’s no lie, Le Pays is a pleasant buffoon! And he wrote from Grenoble, where he was at that time, a jolly and rather attractive letter on this subject. He did more; back in Paris, he went to see Despréaux, and always maintained his cheerful character. M. Despréaux was at first embarrassed by the visit of a man who had the right to complain about him; but M. Le Pays put him at ease, and they parted on friendly terms. He died in Paris in 1690, and was buried in Saint Eustache, where Voiture, who was called the monkey also had his grave.

De Veissieres, Mathurin de la Croze , born in Nantes in 1661, Benedictine in Paris. [6] His freedom of thought and a Benedictine prior opposed to this freedom, constrained him to leave his order and his religion. He was a living library, and his memory was prodigious. Besides the useful and agreeable things that he knew, he studied others which cannot be known, such as the ancient Egyptian language. There is by him an esteemed work on the history of Christianity in India, in two volumes in-12, published in Holland in 1724. We find hundreds of very curious things there. In this work, he has given us an exact history of most Eastern communions, among others the Malabar Christians, who reject the supremacy of the Pope, deny transubstantiation, the worship of images, and purgatory. He tells us also that the Brahmans believe in the unity of one God, and leave idols to the people. When asked why they do not worship the sovereign Creator, they answer that he is an incomprehensible being without a face, of whom man cannot form bodily ideas. At the same time, the sages, who are strictly speaking the wise men of India, reject the worship of idols and outward ceremonies. M. de la Croze died in Berlin in 1739.

1. Clair of Nantes, 3rd century.

2. A Spanish tribunal established to conduct West Indian trade.

3. Maximilian I (1459 – 1519), Holy Roman Emperor.

4. Jeanne de France (1464-1605).

5. Mary Tudor (1496-1533), sister of Henry VIII of England.

6. Mathurin Veyssière de la Croze, author of Histoire du christianisme des Indes (The Hague, 1724).