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32-564: The protesters considered the tax harmful to Breton agriculture, which was already having a difficult time competing with its counterparts in Europe. They wore red caps, in reference to the seventeenth century revolt of the papier timbré which was particularly active in Brittany, though the Phrygian cap as a protest symbol goes back much further. Hundreds of red-cap-wearing demonstrators protested against

64-819: A beautiful Italian, Mariana Antoinetta Matiocco, he settled at Belle Île off the coast of Brittany where he established an artists' colony. Russell had met Vincent van Gogh in Paris and formed a friendship with him. Van Gogh spoke highly of Russell's work, and after his first summer in Arles in 1888 he sent twelve drawings of his paintings to Russell, to inform him about the progress of his work. Monet often worked with Russell at Belle Île and influenced his style, though it has been said that Monet preferred some of Russell's Belle Île seascapes to his own. Russell did not attempt to make his pictures known. In 1897 and 1898 Henri Matisse visited Belle Île. Russell introduced him to impressionism and to

96-484: A fall in income after 1670, landlords became more punctilious in demanding their rights, which may have contributed to the uprising. This view however is disputed by Jean Meyer who noted that it is "questionable" whether there was any significant relation between the areas in which domain congéable operated and those in which the rebellion erupted. It may be significant that parishes outside the congéable system rebelled, while others within it did not. It may be added that

128-513: A holiday party in Metz. Posing for a group photo in front of the company offices in their Santa Claus hats, police mistook them for a demonstration of the bonnets rouges , and they quickly intervened. By January, the number of highway tax and radar-ticket machines destroyed had topped 200. This had the desired effect. In 2013, for the first time since ticket-giving radar cameras had been installed in France,

160-460: A popular location for artists. Octave Penguilly L'Haridon 's 1859 painting Les Petites mouettes ("Little Gulls") (1858, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes) depicts the island. It was praised by Maxime Du Camp and Charles Baudelaire , who referred to the sense of the uncanny, as though the rocks make "a portal open to infinity...a wound of white birds, and the solitude!" During the 1870s and 1880s, French Impressionist painter Claude Monet painted

192-473: A total of about €10,000 in fines. The same day the sentences were declared, farmers in Brittany invaded the city of Morlaix, dumped their produce in big piles in the streets, set fire to the tax office, and blockaded the area to keep fire trucks from responding. In September and October, three other French tax offices were put to the torch, and French tax officials complained of feeling threatened. The French government finally decided, in late October, to abandon

224-610: Is a French island off the coast of Brittany in the département of Morbihan , and the largest of Brittany's islands. It is 14 kilometres ( 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 nautical miles) from the Quiberon peninsula . Administratively, the island is divided into four communes : Belle-Île formed a canton until 2015 when it was merged into the canton of Quiberon as part of a general overhaul. The island measures 17 by 9 kilometres ( 10 + 1 ⁄ 2 by 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles) and has an average elevation of 40 metres (130 feet). The area

256-644: Is about 84 km ( 32 + 1 ⁄ 2  sq mi). The coasts are a mixture between dangerously sharp cliff edges on the southwest side, the Côte Sauvage ("wild coast"), and placid beaches, the largest being les Grands Sables ("the great sands") and navigable harbours on the northeast side. The island's climate is oceanic , having less rain and milder winters than on the mainland. The two main ports are Le Palais (accessible by ferry from Quiberon, Port-Navalo and Vannes ) and Sauzon (accessible by ferry from Quiberon and Lorient ). There used to be forests on

288-553: The Expulsion of the Acadians . Today, Belle-Île's population is about 5,300, and its economy is largely dependent on tourism and fishing. During the summer the island's population increases dramatically, as many people own a second home on the island due to its secluded location and beaches. Lyrique en Mer/Festival de Belle Île is the largest opera festival in western France. Founded in 1998 by American opera singer Richard Cowan ,

320-609: The Chambre des domaines (which deprived some nobles of legal rights) for the same amount and acquired the royal edicts establishing new taxes, plus other expenses for the royal power, for the huge sum of 6.3 million livres. A year later, the same edicts were restored, without consulting the Estates. Also, through the Parliament of Brittany, Louis XIV registered tax on stamped paper in August 1673, and

352-526: The French coast, notably the Brittany coast, off which it cruised in April–May 1673 (after a landing on Belle-Île in 1673 and another landing on Groix in 1674 ). This interfered with Breton trade. To finance the French war effort, new taxes were levied: These threats and new taxes added to an already-difficult economic situation in Brittany, then a heavily populated area (with around 10% of France's population at

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384-603: The Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African , 1789, June 1792. His book was a bestseller in his own time. He became a central figure in the British abolitionist movement, as a forceful abolitionist lecturer, based on his own experiences as a former slave. Equiano gave a detailed eyewitness report of the attacks and siege. Much of the island's current population is descended from repatriated Acadian colonists who returned to France after being expelled from Acadia (1755–1764) during

416-647: The Torrebens (a war cry and signature in one of the peasant codes). It was unleashed by an increase in taxes, including the papier timbré , needed to authenticate official documents. Louis XIV declared war on the Dutch Republic in 1672. Unlike in the War of Devolution , after a rapid advance the French army was stopped by the Dutch deliberately breaching the dykes and flooding the land. The war dragged on. The Dutch fleet threatened

448-409: The abolition of the system is not demanded in the surviving "peasant codes". Women played an active role in the revolt. At this time, Royal law was significantly reducing both the economic and citizenship rights that women had formerly enjoyed. Women had no right to choose their own husbands for example. This struck hard in a land where women played a very important role, and this issue is identified in

480-450: The county of Cornouaille . In 1572, the monks of the abbey of Ste Croix at Quimperlé ceded the island to the Retz family, in whose favour it was raised to a marquisate in the following year. It subsequently came into the hands of the family of Fouquet. The island's fortifications were erected by Vauban on behalf of Nicolas Fouquet , prior to Fouquet incurring the displeasure of Louis XIV ;

512-450: The end of November, the movement massed in Carhaix and simultaneously used shipping trucks to blockade highways throughout France. At one point the demonstrators held an auction at which they sold off bits and pieces of previously destroyed road tax gantries as souvenirs. In an amusing moment, a hundred employees of Ecomouv, the quasi-private company responsible for collecting the new tax, held

544-615: The festival produces two staged operas every summer, conducted by Music Director Philip Walsh and directed by Mr. Cowan, the Artistic Director. Additionally, there are sacred concerts in all four of the island's historic churches, as well as many smaller concerts and Master Classes. Lyrique en Mer has wide support from the French business community as well as from the Conseil Général , the Conseil Régional . The island has been

576-538: The first week of November. These would typically be destroyed by fire, often by filling tires stacked at their bases with flammable material and lighting them. Sometimes, less-destructive means were used, such as wrapping the radar cameras in plastic and topping them with bonnets rouges of their own. By late November, 46 tax radars and gantries had been destroyed and other anti-tax groups were beginning their own direct action, including farmers and equestrians who disrupted traffic in Paris with their tractors and horses. At

608-419: The hated tax entirely. The cost to the government was enormous. In addition to the loss of anticipated revenue from the tax (€390 million per year) and the property damage and other costs associated with the demonstrations, the government was required to pay compensation to Ecomouv, the quasi-private company that had contracted to administer the tax, and others — nearly one billion euros in all. Revolt of

640-460: The highway tax gantry at Pont-de-Buis on 28 October 2013, and during the course of the protest a demonstrator had his hand blown off when he picked up a grenade thrown by law enforcement. Soon after, the French government announced that it would be temporarily suspending the new tax until 2015 at the earliest. This did not satisfy the demonstrators, who went on to destroy more than two dozen tax gantries and many smaller radar-camera-like outposts, by

672-429: The island, but these have long disappeared due to increasing agricultural use of the land. Belle Île experiences a warm-summer Mediterranean climate . At the 2009 census, the population of Belle Île was 4,920. However, in summer the population may increase to 25,000, with a peak at 35,000 between 15 July and 15 August due to tourist activity. Belle Île was separated from the mainland about 6000 BC, earlier than

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704-399: The land revenues ( fermages ) and those on wine and canvas by a third, leading to general deflation , except offices. In addition, the domain congéable system, which regulated the relationship between peasant farmers and the owners of the land they cultivated, was archaic, and gave no incentive to either peasants or landowners to invest in improvements in farming methods. Indeed, facing

736-674: The land was ceded to the crown in 1718. The island was held by British troops from 1761, following its capture by an expedition sent out from England, to 1763, when it was returned to France in exchange for Menorca as part of the Peace of Paris . Because of the upheaval from the conflict, half the population had moved back to the mainland and the abandoned lands were offered to the deported Acadians who settled here in 1766. The attacks on Belle Île and siege of Belle Île have been described by Olaudah Equiano ( c.  1745  – c.  1797 ) in his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of

768-517: The moonlight and tremble in the wind, On the trees of the road, among the yellow leaves, The peasants hanged by that good Duke of Chaulnes , You didn't care about the peasants slaughtered By force, and of the poor crushed under the packsaddle. Belle-%C3%8Ele-en-Mer Belle-Île ( French pronunciation: [bɛl il] ), Belle-Île-en-Mer ( French pronunciation: [bɛl il ɑ̃ mɛʁ] ), or Belle Isle ( Breton : Ar Gerveur , [arˌɡɛrˈvøːr] ; Old Breton: Guedel )

800-576: The neighbouring islands of Houat and Hœdic . Archaeological finds from the Bronze Age suggest that the island enjoyed a large increase in population in this time, probably due to improvements in seafaring. It was then a naval base for the Veneti . The Roman name of the island seems to have been Vindilis , which in the Middle Ages became corrupted to Guedel . During the ninth century Belle-Île belonged to

832-587: The number of tickets issued by the machines declined. The government made its first big counterattacks in the Spring. Eleven suspected bonnets rouges were arrested and charged with conspiracy in April. The following month, the government convicted Samantha Prime of participating in the destruction of a radar outpost. Destruction of highway tax gantries, however, continued. The eleven conspirators were convicted and sentenced to between four and 18 months imprisonment, along with

864-509: The papier timbr%C3%A9 The Revolt of the papier timbré was an anti-fiscal revolt in the west of Ancien Régime France, during the reign of Louis XIV from April to September 1675. It was fiercest in Lower Brittany , where it took on an anti-lordly tone and became known as the revolt of the Bonnets rouges (after the blue or red caps worn by the insurgents according to region) or revolt of

896-504: The peasant codes. Finally, Brittany was a Pays d'États with its own parliaments, the Estates of Brittany and the Parliament of Brittany . It was exempted from the " gabelle " (salt tax), and new taxes should be agreed by the Estates, as guaranteed in 1532 Act of Union between Brittany and France . In 1673, the Estates had, in addition to a gift of 2.6 million livres, bought the abolition of

928-478: The rock formations at Belle Île. Monet's series of paintings of the rocks at Belle Île astounded the Paris art world when he first exhibited them in 1887. Most notable are the Storm, Coast at Belle-Ile and Cliffs at Belle-Ile both rendered in 1886. The first time Auguste Rodin saw the ocean off the Brittany coast he exclaimed, “It’s a Monet." Australian born artist John Russell was a man of means and having married

960-503: The time) after being spared famines and epidemics since the 1640s. In the 1660s and 70s it entered a phase of economic difficulties, largely linked to the first effects of Louis XIV's policy of economic warfare, the simultaneous increase in taxes and structural weaknesses: for example, a 66% reduction in the wine and canvas trade after the duc de Chaulnes (nicknamed an hoc'h lart , "the fat pig", in Breton ), governor of Brittany reduced

992-855: The tobacco tax in November 1674, in defiance of "Breton liberties", as Bretons at the time called their privileges under the Treaty of Union. The new charges involved more expense for small farmers and townspeople compared to the privileged classes, and implied an introduction of gabelle. All this created a broad front of discontent against the unprecedented brutality of the central State. Ne s’étonnait de voir, douce femme rêvant, Blêmir au clair de lune et trembler dans le vent, Aux arbres du chemin, parmi les feuilles jaunes, Les paysans pendus par ce bon duc de Chaulnes, Vous ne preniez souci des manants qu’on abat Par la force, et du pauvre écrasé sous le bât. Wasn't surprised to see, sweet dreaming woman, To whiten in

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1024-402: The work of Van Gogh (who was relatively unknown at the time). Matisse's style changed radically, and he would later say "Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained colour theory to me." The island is the setting for portions of the novel The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later , Alexandre Dumas père 's second sequel to The Three Musketeers . Dumas has his character Aramis fortify

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