La Vendée

Vendée, La 

a department in western France, located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Area, 7,000 sq km. Population (1968), 421,000. Administrative center, La Roche-sur-Yon.

The province produces grain and livestock for the dairy and meat industries. There are also fishing and oyster industries. La Vendée has food and textile enterprises in addition to uranium-ore mines (Mortagne). There are resorts along the seacoast.

At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, La Vendée was the center of reactionary uprisings fomented by England. These were led by the counterrevolutionary gentry and Catholic clergy acting to restore the Bourbon dynasty, which had been overthrown in 1792 during the course of the Great French Revolution. Subsequently, the term “Vendée” came to be used as an appellative for designating the sources of counterrevolution.

REFERENCES

Chaigne, L. Confidence au bord des sources: Itinéraires vendéens. [Fontenay-le-Comte, 1967.]
Chaigne, L. La Vendée .…Paris [1942].