Last modified: 2012-04-21 by ivan sache
Keywords: cotes-d'armor | erquy | mermaid | ermines (black) | letter: e (white) |
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![[Flag of Erquy]](../images/f/fr-22-eq.gif)
Flag of Erquy - Image by Ivan Sache, 3 October 2010 - coat of arms after the image contributed to Wikimedia Commons by users "Brieg + Ssire"
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The municipality of Erquy (3,742 inhabitants in 2006; 2,646 ha) is located on the northern coast of Brittany, 30 km east of Saint-Brieuc. A fishing port specialized in scallop gathering, Erquy is also a popular sea resort, with summer population peaking to 40,000 and enjoying the beautiful beaches and the pink cliffs and moors of Cap d'Erquy.
Erquy was, according to a local legend, a Gallo-Roman town called
Nazado. The local women had such a thin skin that wine could be seen
flowing in their throat; they attracted the men from the neighbouring
garrison, whose desertion was punished by the flooding of the town (a
similar, woman-blaming legend explains the flooding of the town
of Ys).
More seriously, some historians from the 19th century assumed that
Reginea, shown on the Peutinger map of the Roman Empire, was a Gallo-
Roman town located on the site of Erquy. They interpreted the name as
the "Bay's Queen" (from Latin, regina, "the queen") or considered
Regina as a local deity; accordingly, the inhabitants of Erquy are
named Réginéens or even Rhoeginéens. Modern historians rather believe that the reading of the map was faultive, and have corrected Reginea to Reginca, that is river Rance.
Erquy was mentioned for the first time in 1167, as the Erque parish, a
name probably coming from Welsh argae, "a barrage", or from ancient
Breton argeen, "a hedge". Remains of a Roman camp protected by
ditches have indeed been found in Erquy.
Erquy is the French capital of scallop gathering, accounting for 50%
of the national catches. Gathered from 1 October to 15 May, only two
days a week and for 45 minutes period watched with helicopters, the
scallops from the Bay of Saint-Brieuc do not have "coral" (roa) and
are extremely prized by gastronoms; France is the only country to have
banned scallop gathering during the summer, reproduction period. The
Erquy fleet, involved in "traditional" fishing out of the scallop
season, is made of 70 coastal and 14 deep-sea trawlers, bringing back
some 15,000 tons of fish and seafood every year.
The port of Erquy, inaugurated in 1900, was in the beginning of the
20th century a significant port of commerce, exporting agricultural
products and, mostly, cobbles of pink sandstone extracted from the
nearby quarries. Set up in 1832 as family workshops producing stones
for the building houses and paving streets in the village, the Erquy
quarries industrialized their production in 1860, following the
increasing demand of cobbles to pave the streets of the big towns. The
Fosse-Eyrand quarries, which had their own workers' city, were closed
in 1960, but their scraps were subsequently used to build the barrage
on the river Rance and the new fishing port of Erquy.
Erquy has one of the four bullet kilns still kept in northern
Brittany. Built in 1794 upon request of the Ministry of the Navy, the
kiln was designed to heat to incandescence bullets, then supplied to
the neighbouring battery of three canons; the hot bullets were
expected to set fire on the targeted ships. However, the kilns seem to
have never been operational, even in 1796, when a naval battle opposed
French and English fleets in the Erquy harbor; reaching the
incandescence temperature required too much time and the kilns
produced a lot of smoke, which dramatically slowed the process.
Although unsuccessful, the bullet kilns have survived in the French
colloquial language, through the expression tirer à boulets rouges, "to shoot with red bullets", used when someone is
a matter of harsh, generalized criticism.
Source: Municipal website
Erquy is believed to have been the model for the (unnamed) village
inhabited by Asterix and his band of merry, irreducible Gauls. For 40
years, Jean-Pierre Allain, a now retired bookseller from Erquy, has
been strongly supporting this claim even if all his attempts to have
it validated by Albert Uderzo, Asterix' designer, have failed. The
similarity between the Erquy landscape and Uderzo's village are indeed
striking: on the first page of all Asterix' books, the village shown
under a magnifying glass looks like an airborne photo of Erquy,
including the Three Stones islets. As said above, there was in Erquy
a Roman camp known as "Caesar's Camp", and quarries, even if menhirs
were never extracted from them. The lighthouse designed for the book
Le Domaine des Dieux matches the real lighthouse of Erquy.
After an invited helicopter trip over Erquy, Uderzo admitted the
similarity but said his "reconstruction" of Erquy was everything but
deliberate; he indeed spent several of his youth summer vacations in
Saint-Brieuc and visited Erquy during that period, and was probably
inspired by his souvenirs when the scenarist René Goscinny asked him
to design a village "on the coast", a location required by Asterix'
travels. There is no particular reason not to believe Uderzo, who
never hid his sources; for instance, he recognized that lovely Falbala
was modelled on his own wife.
Anyway, we will probably never know and there are a few other places
that claim to be the "genuine" Asterix' village.
Source: Asterix' village in Erquy, France-Soir, 21 October 2009
Ivan Sache, 3 October 2010
The flag of Erquy is reported by Philippe Rault (Les drapeaux bretons de 1188 à nos jours [rau98]) as white with the municipal coat of arms in the middle.
The arms of Erquy are given by Marc Plantier (website) as De sinople à une sirène d'or, les cheveux flottant, les
bras et la queue tournés vers senestre évoquant la lettre E capitale; au chef d'hermine ("Vert a mermaid her hair streaming in the wind her arms and tail turned to sinister evoking the capital letter "E", a
chief ermine).
The arms were designed in 1965 by a Mr. Guyomard; on 12 February 1965,
the Head of the Departmental Archives of Côtes-du-Nord informed the
municipal administration that the design matched the rules of heraldry
and was a suitable municipal coat of arms, which has been used since
then by the town of Erquy. The greater arms are supported dexter by a
seaman and sinister by a farmer, surmonted by a basket or filled with
local products; the motto "Reginea fus" (Latin, "Stays a Queen") must be placed on some sort of scroll beneath the shield.
The Regina mermaid is the emblem of Erquy. In June 2010, the Portuguese-born stone-cutter Manuel Mendès Gerardo offerred to the municipality a sculpture representing the mermaid, as a tribute to the population of Erquy who had warmly welcomed him more than ten years ago (press article).
Ivan Sache, 3 October 2010
![[CV Erquy]](../images/f/fr-22~eq.gif)
Burgee of CVE - Image by Ivan Sache, 13 May 2001
The burgee of Club de Voile de la Baie d'Erquy (until 4 December 2000, Club de Voile d'Erquy) (CVE, website) is red with two black triangles along the hoist and a white fimbriation between the black and red parts. A white "E" letter is placed in the upper
triangle.
Every year, the club organizes the Costarmoricaine regatta, ran
between different ports of the department of Côtes-d'Armor, whose flag is widely used during the race - for instance by the boat of the Race Committee (photos).
Ivan Sache, 3 October 2010
