This walk will guide you through Poitiers of the 16th-19th centuries. We’ll begin with the free-thinking period of the University, the second created in France, moving onto the rise of the Reformed religion in Poitiers (and seeing where John Calvin preached). The early 17th century was then dominated by the Counter-Reformation, and we will see the sites of many of the great convents created in that Period. We’ll see Poitiers’ largest park, the Parc Blossac which was built in the late 18th century, and end our tour with a glimpse at the 19th century urbanism which transformed the city, along the Avenue Victor Hugo. As a bonus, we’ll see where Poitiers grew its wine, and even where the devil was said to pass some bad gas.
Introduction
No longer a history of Kings and Queens, of Dukes and Counts, of knights and history-shaping battles, the history of Poitiers in this time revolves first around religion. As the 16th Century starts, after Martin Luther and the launch of the Reformation, John Calvin comes and preaches in Poitiers in the 1530s. The city becomes an early center of reformation in France, and then suffers greatly from the break-out of religious warfare between Catholic and Protestant forces. After the assassination of King Henri IV in 1611 brings a too-brief period of peace and relative toleration to an end, the Counter-Reformation takes off under Henry’s Bourbon Dynasty descendants, especially Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Poitiers goes from being a hotbed of reformation to a center of the Counter-Reformation. The landscape of the city is completely reshaped by a host of Catholic religious orders who establish themselves here in the span of a few decades.
Fast-forward to the late 1700s, when the French Revolution arrives. With the Revolution in 1789, all churches and monasteries across the country are abolished, their properties sold. The great buildings of the Counter-Reformation are turned to other uses, in Poitiers as elsewhere (as are many of Poitiers’ earlier churches). As industry progresses in the 19th century, the landscape of the city is once again drastically reshaped, this time by urban planners. Everything is different once the railroad arrives.
We’ll see the history of this period of Poitiers by walking mostly on the city’s west side, that of the neglected of its two rivers, the Boivre. The plateau on which the center of the city sits drops much more steeply in this direction than it does towards the Clain, and many of Poitiers’ famous staircases are here (there is by the way a modern, and exhausting, race that involves climbing many of these staircases). We’ll also see parts of the University of Poitiers, though it dates back a century further than our main storyline, to the 1430s – making it one of the oldest universities in Europe. To make the walk work best, we’ll follow the lines of geography more closely than the lines of history, jumping somewhat back and forth chronologically.
- Starting Point: Place du Marechal-Leclerc (west side)
- End Point: Place du Marechal-Leclerc
- Distance: 3 Miles
- Walking Time: 1.5 hours
- Estimated total time: 3 hours
Map: see at bottom of walk, or at link here
The Walk
We’ll begin this walk on the Place du Marechal-Leclerc, standing on the far end from Poitiers’ City Hall, and begin in the 15th century (map A). The University of Poitiers was created back in 1431 (two centuries before Harvard College), by Charles VII, “King of Poitiers” (see “Joan of Arc and the King of Poitiers”). The founding of the University continued a long tradition of learning in Poitiers, dating back to the religious school affiliated with the Church of Saint-Hilaire from the early Middle Ages. The University grew to be quite large for the size of the city, attracting students from throughout France and Europe, particularly the British Isles, and producing several famous graduates, including the philosophers Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes (see “Where is Rene Descartes’ Finger?”). The first session of the University was held about two blocks from here, at #15 Rue de l’Ancienne Comedie (now the Maison de la Nouvelle-Aquitaine), then the Convent of the Jacobins (better known in English as Dominicans), with a focus on theology. In front of you, in the Hotel de Ville de Poitiers (City Hall), the first Law courses were held, in the Great Hall. The Hotel de Ville also housed the first Faculty meetings. From here northwards, to the far side of Notre-Dame-la-Grande, was the de-facto Latin Quarter of Poitiers, full of students for at least the 15th and 16th centuries. The most famous Renaissance poetry group in France, La Pléiade, counted on three Poitiers students: Joachim du Bellay, Antoine de Baif et Vauquelin de la Fresnaye. The best-known of the Pléiade’s stars, Ronsard, came to Poitiers and met Du Bellay. As you look at the cafés surrounding the Place today, you can imagine not dissimilar cafés here, thriving with crowds of students and poetry readings.
The University town proved itself receptive to new thinking of many types. For a good part of the 17th Century, Poitiers was a stronghold of Calvinism in France. John Calvin himself came to Poitiers to preach in 1534, as we will see later on this walk. In many cities, the messages of Protestantism appealed particularly to the small bourgeoisie, to merchants, lawyers and artisans. Poitiers had a lot of these. Wool cloth from Poitou could be found throughout France and in much of Europe. The number of fairs and markets across the region grew during the middle ages, attracting crowds of traders from everywhere. But neither the established church nor the royal family were receptive to this radical change, and the reaction soon led to full-scale fighting across France, as with elsewhere across Europe.
By the early 1560s the Wars of Religion were in full swing. The fighting which raged for three decades dealt a heavy blow to 16th century Poitiers’ burgeoning population, economy and health. Though we won’t pass them on this walk, there are some very clear reminders of the violence of the conflict elsewhere in Poitiers:
- When you have a view of the back side of the Poitiers Cathedral, you can notice cannon balls lodged in the wall. Yes, cannon balls. You won’t find these on any other Cathedral anywhere! These are souvenirs from the Siege of Poitiers in 1569, when the forces of Protestant Admiral de Coligny besieged the city for weeks, unsuccessfully.
- When you visit Poitiers’ older churches, such as Notre-Dame-la-Grande, Sainte-Radegonde, Saint-Porchaire, Montierneuf, or Saint-Hilaire, there’s something missing which you may not immediately realize. These churches, themselves masterpieces of Romanesque architecture, once had extensive collections of medieval sculptures, bejeweled reliquaries, fine furnishings and religious art. All of these were pillaged and burnt when Protestant troops briefly occupied the city in 1562. Instead, the art you’ll find in all these churches is for the most part from the Counter-Reformation.
From the Place and facing the Hotel de Ville, turn briefly onto the Rue Carnot, to your right. On this now commercial street, a road of Inns and hostels during the Middle Ages, the Sister Hospitallers of the Order of Saint Joseph arrived in 1655, and built a convent where #s 24-35 are which covered the entire block down to the Rue Theophraste-Renaudot (map B). This newly-found order, created only in 1636, was one of the last of the wave of religious orders to arrive in Poitiers during the Counter-Reformation. The Sisters focused on nursing the poor and the sick, and the Order flourished especially in French Canada in the ensuing decades. The Order was successful enough in Poitiers for them to purchase the old town market, Les Halles. The Sisters were expulsed during the French Revolution, and the convent became a prison in 1794.
The Sisters of Saint-Joseph were far from alone. After the fighting ended, Poitiers was but a shadow of its former wealthy self, and Huguenots had been largely driven out of the former Protestant center (for more on the conflict and its effects, see “Counter-Reformation Poitiers”). With not-too-distant La Rochelle remaining a Protestant stronghold through much of the 17th century, protected by English warships, the increasingly intolerant French monarchy set out to ensure Poitiers reverted to a fully loyal and Catholic base, from which further attacks could be made on La Rochelle. One of the most visible signs of this Counter-Reformation push for religious purity was the arrival of a wave of Catholic religious orders, who settled in Poitiers and gobbled up large tracts of the city’s land to establish convents and other facilities. The writer of fables, Jean de La Fontaine, on a trip in 1633, described Poitiers as a city “abundant in preachers and monks.” No fewer than 11 different catholic orders established themselves here in the 17th century, and left their mark on the fabric of Poitiers. So much for the city crawling in students of the previous century. We’ll walk in their traces of several of them.
Come back along the Rue Carnot and then turn right onto the Rue Saint Nicolas, and continue straight past the Square de la Republique. Turn left onto the Rue Louis Renard. Past the Square, at #1 Rue Louis Renard, we can see where the first of these new Orders to arrive, the Jesuits, set up their base (map C). The Lycée Henri IV was built by the Jesuit Order shortly after their installation in Poitiers in 1604. As one part of the name implies, the Jesuits in Poitiers focused, as has often been the case, on education: they consolidated three existing schools into theirs, and students from a wide area came to study with them. The Jesuits were expelled from France, temporarily, in 1762 due to conflicts with King Louis XVI. As the second half of the name implies, the Jesuit school was opened with the explicit permission of then King Henri IV, the former leader of the Protestant forces who victoriously brought an end to the Wars of Religion in 1589. This somewhat incongruous endorsement of a school run by representatives of his former “enemies” illustrates his strategy, once he was crowned King and issued the Edict of Nantes (the proclamation of religious tolerance which brought an end to decades of active fighting), to maintain the support of Catholics as well as his Protestant base. The complex is now a secondary school with the original name in place, and can be visited. The St Louis Chapel is the oldest part of the school, and is worth seeing for the richness of the decoration and furnishings, including a large painting by a disciple of Caravaggio: a very good example of the French Baroque architecture and art. The buildings to the west of the chapel are mostly 17th century, while those to the east are more recent.
Along the south side of The Lycée, take a left and head southeast along the Rue Jean Alexandre, for three blocks. At the bottom of the Rue Jean Alexandre, turn right onto the Rue Girouard. This is the former Rue du Calvaire. From this corner (map D), heading down towards the River Clain, in the 1st century AD was an oyster farming park. Regrettably it is no longer possible to find Poitiers oysters, although some of the best oysters in Europe (the “marennes”) are harvested on the Atlantic Coast not far from here – a good thing to look for in Poitiers restaurants. The seafood theme of this area continued for some time. In the 18th Century a staircase opposite #9 on the street led to a fish reservoir maintained by one of the new Catholic orders, Les Filles Penitentes. Back at #1 Rue Girouard, from 1628 to 1785 was the vegetable garden of another of the Catholic Orders which came to Poitiers during the Counter-reformation, the Daughters of Sainte Catherine of Sienna. Continue along the Rue Girouard to #s 19-31. This stretch of the street, from 1617 to 1791, was the Convent of the Sisters of Calvary. This Benedictine Order was founded here in Poitiers, by Antoinette d’Orleans-Longueville, a former abbess of the Royal Abbey of Fontevrault, based on following a stricter observance of the Rule of Benedict. The Order founded several more Monasteries elsewhere in France and Western Europe. Here in Poitiers the Sisters of Calvary also absorbed the centuries-old Abbey of the Holy Trinity in 1633.
Continue along the same street, and stay straight at the end of the Rue Girouard, on what becomes the Rue de Blossac. At #11-13 (map E) was the location of the 12th century Church of Saint Gregory, which had been built on what was thought to be the Tomb of Sainte Loubette. This unusually named saint, who is completely unknown outside of Poitiers, was said to have been an attendant of Saint Helen, the wife of the Emperor Constantine (the first Roman Emperor to accept Christianity, in 306 AD), and to have somehow wound up in Poitiers after leaving Constantinople. The Church here was taken over in 1607 and became the Convent of the Capuchins. Also known as the Friars Minor, the Capuchins were a Franciscan Order founded in the early 16th century, with the principle of returning to a stricter observance of the Rule of St Francis. They were one of the chief tools in the Catholic Counter-reformation, the aim of the order being to work among the poor, impressing the minds of the common people by the poverty and austerity of their life. The Convent was destroyed in 1791, and the site was used for a military barracks.
At the end of the Rue de Blossac you come to Poitiers’ main urban park, the Parc de Blossac (map F). The Park was created in the 18th century, and its history is tied to the Counter-Reformation and the urban renewal movements of our period. Some of the area of the park was part of the old Gallo-Roman cemetery, along the road to Bordeaux. It was also built along the southeastern section of the fortified city walls, dating back to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Organized mainly in the French style, it is a Park of many straight lines, rectangular plots of flowers and trees; the wandering, whimsical pathways which characterize English style gardens are confined to a separate section of the Park. The best view in the Park is from the terrace, atop the old Tour de l’Oiseau from the ramparts, overlooking the valley of the River Clain. Blossac is a lovely place to stroll, especially on a hot day. For those who have been following a long Reformed and Reconstructed walk, there are plenty of benches to sit and have a rest.
The creation of the Parc de Blossac is tied to the Counter-Reformation. Cardinal Richelieu, Chief Minister to Louis XIII for much of the first half of the 17th century, was an extremely effective administrator, and a powerful advocate of both the counter-reformation and of the consolidation of royal power. Two of his key policies had a dramatic, and strongly negative, effect on Poitiers. One of these policies was fiscal, the levying of high taxes in the 1630s and 1640s, funding the build-up of centralized authority under Louis XIII. These taxes ruined manufacturing and export businesses throughout France, and undermined much of the industry which was left in Poitiers. His second policy was the sponsoring of anti-Protestant persecutions, the dragonnades, which singled out remaining Protestants – making them responsible for quartering soldiers (dragoons) who were given license to demand and break whatever they felt like. The dragonnades drove the city’s Huguenot small bourgeois into ruin and/or exile. Before the Hundred Years’ War, in the 1300s, a vibrant Poitiers was estimated to be among the 5% wealthiest cities of France; by the time of the Revolution in the late 1700s, it was in the bottom third. Enter, in the mid-18th century, a royal administrator tasked with managing Poitiers, by the wonderful name of “Paul-Esprit-Marie de la Boudonnaye, Chevalier, Marquis de la Bourdonnaye et du Tymeur, Comte de Blossac, Conseiller du Roi en ses conseils, Maitre des Requêtes honoraire”. Not a name or set of titles one is going to see every day. Blossac arrives in Poitiers and notices widespread unemployment. His response is to create large public works programs to put the unemployed to work. He has the Pont Neuf constructed, and most importantly, the Park which bears his name.
Turn left from the main exit of the Parc on the Rue Leopold-Thezard. At the end of the block and street turn left briefly on the Rue de la Tranchee, then take your first right onto the Rue Le Cesve, through the old village of Saint Hilaire. Take the stairway in front of you, which has both a colorful name, Les Escaliers du Diable (map G), and a colorful history involving a devil with bad gas (see “The Devil’s Staircase”). Here you are climbing off the Plateau of the central city, down the hill to the valley of the Boivre. All along the hill here, for most of the time from the Roman era until the early 19th century, would have been covered in vineyards. Not that the wine of Poitiers ever enjoyed a particularly widespread reputation, but for much of that period wine was expensive to transport, and therefore Poitiers’ residents would have consumed almost entirely wine from grapes grown on the side of the hills overlooking the Boivre.
When you reach the Boulevard Achard at the bottom of the stairs, look to the right. The residence on the right side, the Apartments of the Ramparts of Eleanor of Aquitaine, are a reminder that the Boulevard follows along the line of the fortified walls which Eleanor rebuilt around the city in the 12th century. Her walls doubled the perimeter covered by the old Gallo-Roman city wall of the 3rd century. Continue your walk straight onto the Rue Georges Guynemer, then crossing the Pont Achard, and turning right onto the Rue de Maillochon.
Here you are walking on the far side of the Boivre, which today is pretty hemmed in, and often hard to see at all. In the Middle Ages, however, it was an important part of the city’s defenses, and a completely different affair than the small stream you can observe now. With small dams downstream from here, the Counts of Poitiers created a wide marsh and pond all through this valley, called L’Etang de Montierneuf. It made the defenses of the city largely impregnable from this side.
Across the river, as you cannot miss, is the Gare SNCF, the Poitiers train station, starting point of a visit of Poitiers for many. The railway first arrived in Poitiers in 1851, and was a major piece of the reconstruction of the city in the 19th century. This shifted the center of gravity for a large part of the city’s commercial activity down off of the plateau for the first time, and the Boulevards in the Boivre valley became a major thoroughfare for the first time. The area here became extremely crowded until the main Paris-Bordeaux highway was eventually shifted to the west of the city. The new modes of transportation, the railway and the more efficient road system which preceded it in the 18th century, brought new connections and commerce to Poitiers, but at the same time contributed to its relative decline over this period. Poitiers’ former monopoly on trade and transit between northern Europe and southwestern France, born of its strategic geographic position along the only passable corridor in western France (see more on this in our tale “Geography is Destiny”), was now clearly at an end. No major industry or commerce stepped in to fill that absence.
At the far end of the main station, take the passageway over the railway which takes you into the station. Cross through the station, cross the Boulevard, and you will come to another stairway between the Boivre Valley and the Plateau (map H). These are the Escaliers de la Gare. They are part of a combined street and stairs way, also sometimes called the Rue de la Visitation, which lost its middle section in the 19th century to the development of the Rue Thibodeau. This always narrow trail was heavily used, leading back in the Gallo-Roman days of Limonum to the Temple of Mercury, on the other side of the Boivre (for more, see our guided walk to Gallo-Roman Poitiers, Touring Limonum).
At the end of the stairs, turn left on the Boulevard de Verdun, which in five minutes will bring you to the back of the TAP, or Theatre-Auditorium de Poitiers (map I). Continue along to the front of the TAP to the Rue de la Marne. The TAP was built on the site of another counter-reformation order, the Congregation of the Daughters of Notre-Dame, who arrived in 1618 and had their main entrance on the Rue de la Marne. This Order was in some way a female version of the Jesuits, also focused on teaching and religious education. This congregation grew rapidly in its first decades, acquiring surrounding land and buildings, and reaching a peak of 90 members and over 200 students. The congregation was dispersed in 1792, during the French Revolution, though since have regathered, occupying today the former priory of the church of Sainte-Radegonde to the east.
Turn left on the Rue de la Marne, which becomes the Rue des Carmélites. This is an old pre-Roman pathway coming from the junction of the rivers Boivre and Clain up to the plateau. It was known until the 17th century as the Rue des Hautes-Treilles (“treilles” being French for trellises, which were used to support grape vines), as it was flanked by vineyards on both sides, covering the hillsides sloping down to the Boivre. It was here, to an extent, that the whole religious conflict in France really got going. This was where the spark of the Reformation in Poitou and western France was lit.
To your right, on the lower half of this first block of the Rue des Carmélites, was a terrace in the 16th century where John Calvin preached in 1533. Continue to the first intersection, on your right, with the Rue du Moulin a Vent. Calvin had fled Paris and taken refuge at Poitiers for several months, from late 1533 to early 1534. The terrace we just passed was the back side of the extensive garden of the Hotel de Saint Souline, whose main entrance is around the corner, at #24 Rue du Moulin a Vent (map J). This mansion was built by the Lieutenant General for the Poitou, François Doyneau (1480-1552), an early and influential convert to the Huguenot religion. Here Calvin, among other things, mocked the Catholic cult of relics, noting specifically the relics of Saint Peter’s beard kept by the Cathedral, and the “Footstep of God” (Pas-de-Dieu) at the Abbey of Sainte-Croix. Calvin won many adherents here, and the 16th century Wars of Religion were fought as intensely in and around Poitiers as anywhere in France. And during the Revolution, two centuries later, anti-religious feeling remained strong, though traces of support for the established church and/or counter-reformation were too. Further down the Rue des Carmélites, at #54, is a 16th century house, where during the Revolution the owned hid priests who were been hunted by agents of the Revolutionary Government – in his chimneys, and in a closet hidden behind tapestries.
Retrace your footsteps up the Rue des Carmélites. On your right as you are climbing is an impressive complex, with the entrance at #84, which by the time you see it may or may not say “Banque de France.” The Bank left this impressive office in 2019. More for our purposes, this is the ancient Convent of the Carmelite Order. The Carmelites, in this case organized under the reformed order of Saint Theresa of Avila, arrived here in 1629. This order was a favorite of Anne of Austria, the wife of King King Louis XIII and mother of Louis XIV. The Carmelites had an enormous holding here, and removed the vineyards that had long covered the hillside. They had this new convent built, starting in 1659: on his way back from his wedding with the Infanta of Spain, Louis XIV stopped here and laid with great pomp the corner stone of the new Carmelite convent (see our tale of “The Sun King’s Second City” to learn about King Louis’ love for Poitiers). A chronicle of the Carmelite sisters from the early 1700s describes the site as “towards the setting sun a beautiful prairie, in the middle of which flows a small stream. The prairie is bordered on one side by a long chain of steep rocks covered with fields and vines.” A line of Counter-Reformation steeples crowned the hilltop. Today’s Boulevard de Solferino, which winds its way down from here to the train station in the valley, cuts through the grounds of the convent. The convent became a prison in 1793, and then a bank. It will have a green future, however: the City of Poitiers in 2019 purchased the property, and has begun implementing plans to create a new park open to the public on the convent grounds. This will be the first public park in Poitiers on the western side, facing the Boivre. The park was scheduled to open in 2020, although 2021 looks more likely. When opened, it should provide one of the best ways to experience what it was like in Poitiers’ wave of Counter-Reformation establishments.
Continue along the Rue de la Marne to the five-way intersection, and take the second left onto the Rue des Ecossais. Walk down to #5, Rue des Ecossais (map J). Here in 1633 was built the Convent of the Sisters of the Visitation. This Order had been founded only a few decades earlier, and following their name members were charged primarily with visiting, and comforting, the sick and the poor. In keeping with the strong Counter-Reformation impulse bringing these groups to Poitiers, the Convent of the Visitation was placed on the same site where an oratory in honor of John Calvin had been built by a devoted Huguenot follower. This had a measure of irony, yet something far more ironic was to come later. In 1871 the same site, empty of the Sisters since the French Revolution, was turned into a Protestant Temple – which as you can see it still is today, the Eglise Reformée de Poitiers. The transition here was characteristic of a big change to come in Poitiers.
The Counter-Reformation, while bringing a lot of energy to early 17th century Poitiers, lost steam after a few decades. By the end of the century, the thriving convents of the many orders which arrived, mostly between 1600 and 1630, were emptying out. A century later, at the arrival of the French Revolution in 1789, several orders counted less than ten members. The Daughters of Saint Catherine, whose vegetable garden we passed earlier on the walk, had no members at all. The traumatic Revolution period generated many trials, and a jump in the number of prisoners well beyond anything seen in the days of the Ancien Regime. Several convents are converted to prisons, like that of the Sisters of the Visitation, and some others into military barracks, like that of the Capuchin Friars. The orders have a far smaller presence in today’s Poitiers than during the Counter-Reformation, but are not completely gone. The Sisters of the Visitation are now near the Cathedral, though their original convent is now a prison, while that of Saint Catherine of Sienna is a military garrison, and that of the Daughters of Notre-Dame a police station. The Carmelites are now in the old church of St Hilaire-de-la-Celle, while the Daughters of Notre Dame are in the former priory of the church of Sainte Radegonde.
Walk the few feet to the end of the Rue des Ecossais, and you will come to the Place Aristide Briand. This brings you from Counter-Reformation to the Reconstructed Poitiers of the 19th century. In front of you is one of the 19th Century’s creations, the Prefecture of the Vienne. The Prefect was the then-new equivalent of a Governor for the department of the Vienne; the departments were the new administrative units created in the early 180ss under Napoleon, which replaced the older divisions into regions, in this case the Poitou. Turn to your right and look up the Avenue Victor Hugo, which runs back up the hill. This avenue is one of the better examples of “reconstructed Poitiers.” It dates from the same urbanization boom which saw the heyday of the famous (or infamous) Baron Haussman in Paris, when he tore apart much of the old city and built the Boulevards, giving Paris much of its present appearance. Here the same spirit led to the creation of the Avenue Victor Hugo, linking the headquarters of the departmental government with the headquarters of city government at the other end, Poitiers’ City Hall. Walk up the Avenue, noting the small museum at #9, the Musee de Chievres, which as of 2020 is closed but planned to reopen after a renovation.
As you come to the end of the Avenue and of this guided tour, at the Place du Marechal Leclerc where we started, look again at the Hotel de Ville across the way. Here we met the site of the early University, four centuries ago: the Hotel rebuilt in the 19th Century, the most visible monument of Poitiers’ urban renewal. That spirit of urban renewal regrettably also led to the complete dismantling in the mid-1800s of Poitiers’ great Roman Arena, said to be the largest in Gaul. It also almost led to the destruction of the medieval Church of Saint-Porchaire, and of the 4th century Baptistery Saint-Jean, the oldest existing Christian monument in France. So it could have been worse.
Today the University lives on, spread across the suburbs and different parts of the city. Most of the great Counter-Reformation convents are no longer, though some live on in different forms. The Reconstruction of the mid-19th century continues with more urban change, albeit with greater care of Poitiers’ old monuments than it once did. One thing has remained constant the whole time: after a long walk, the cafes around the grand Place are still there to welcome you.
