Last modified: 2005-12-24 by ivan sache
Keywords: seine-maritime | treport (le) | ship (white) | crescent (yellow) | star (yellow) |
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![[Flag of Le Trport]](../images/f/fr-76-lt.gif)
Municipal flag of Le Tréport - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 18 September 2005
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The municipality of Le Tréport (5,900 inhabitants - Tréportais) is located on the left bank of the river Bresle and on its mouth into the Channel. The Bresle is the historical limit between Normandy and Picardy, therefore Le Tréport is the northernmost port and sea resort in Normandy. The three neighbouring cities of Le Tréport, the sea resort of Mers-les-Bains located in Picardy just across the Bresle, and the historical city of Eu, located on the Bresle a few kilometers upstream, are known as the trois villes soeurs, the three sister cities.
In the Gallo-Roman times, a city called Augusta was built on the
Bresle; it had two ports, one river port in Augum (Eu) and a sea
"outer" port, Ulterior Portus, which became later Le Tréport.
The Northmen landed in Le Tréport around 860. In the XIth century,
Robert, Count d'Eu and his wife Béatrix founded in Le Tréport the
Saint-Michel's Benedictine abbey on the model of the famous
Mont-Saint-Michel abbey. Normandy was then protected by St. Michael
on its two maritime borders, in the west against Brittany and in the
east against Picardy. The abbey of Le Tréport was very wealthy until
the XIVth century; then she was often trashed during the Hundred Years'
War and the Religious War (XVIth century). After a rebirth in the
XVIIth century, the abbey was suppressed during the French Revolution.
Around 1101, Count Henri I d'Eu diverted the Bresle and the port of Le
Tréport silted up. Dieppe replaced it as the most important port of
northern Normandy. The city was burnt down by the English in 1339. In
1360, a storm flooded a part of the city, including the church and the
cemetary.
In 1460, Charles d'Artois, Count d'Eu ordered the opening of a canal
between Le Tréport and Eu; this canal was used for the next two
centuries. The English attacked the city in 1513 and again in 1545.
Accordingly, François I de Clèves, Count d'Eu, built a big sandstone
tower in order to protect the city. The only remains of this tower are
the vaults of the ancient city hall. François de Clèves also increased
the port by opening a basin and building wharfs, but the basin was
quickly filled up by shingles.
Around 1770, Duke de Penthièvre ordered to remove the shingles from the
port and to build a hunting lock, made in 1776 by engineer Lamblardie.
A hunting lock allows the regulation of the water level in the marshy
areas used for water fowl hunting.
Short before the Revolution, Le Tréport was, along with Dieppe, the
main source of fresh fish and seafood for Paris. Marketable fish is
called in French marée, and the swift horse-drawn carriage which
brought the maréée to Paris early in the morning were known as
chasse-marée; their speed became proverbial as train de
chasse-marée. The street were they met in Paris was the boulevard
Poissonière (lit., female fish merchant), which has kept this name in
spite of the suppression of the chasse-marées.
In the middle of the XIXth century, King Louis-Philippe increased the
port and launched the sea resort of Le Tréport by building there a
villa, where he recieved Queen Victoria in 1843 and 1845. Le Tréport and
its region was the king's preferred vacation place. Big hotels were
built, such as Hôtel Trianon, which was used as a British military
hospital during the First World War and suppressed by the Germans in
1942. The city was liberated on 1 September 1944 after a huge bombing
that destroyed most of the sea front; Le Tréport was awarded the War
Cross.
The traditional fishers' borough, with its small, high slate-roofed
houses with bow windows, is called quartier des cordiers. A
cordier is usualy a rope-maker (from corde, rope), but the
cordiers cordants in Le Tréport were indeed the poorest fishers who
could not buy fishing nets and used long ropes bristled with hooks.
Until the 1960s, the inhabitants of those houses rented them to
tourists from Paris in summertime and moved down into the basement.
Like many other French fishing ports, Le Tréport has kept seamen's
calvaries, which were traditionally saluted by the seamen when they
left the port. The 3.63-m high Stone Cross (Croix de Pierre) was
erected in 1618 during an epidemic of black plague. It was damaged in
1840 by a big carriage and revamped by King Louis-Philippe, who moved
it to a less dangerous place. The cross is decorated with fleurs-de-lis
and Louis XIII's monogram based on letter L. After a tragic wreckage
of 12 November 1856, the seamen erected on 20 September 1860 a wooden
calvary called Terraces' Calvary (Calvaire des Terrasses); it was
replaced by a new calvary on 28 August 1887, which was taken down and
hidden during the German occupation and reestablished in 1948. The
calvary is floodlit every evening and still used by seamen as a marker.
The Seamen's Calvary (Calvaire des Marins), made by Franconville,
ironsmith in Eu, in 1846, was then considered as one of the most
beautiful on the French coasts.
Source: Municipal website
Ivan Sache, 18 September 2005
The municipal flag of Le Tréport, as photographied there in August 2005, is white with the municipal logotype, available on the municipal website.
The logotype is derived from the municipal coat of arms, which are (GASO):
D'azur aux deux navires de sable, équipés d'argent, pavillonnés de gueules, voguant sur une mer de sinople mouvant de la pointe, quittant la jetée du port d'argent, maçonnée de sable, sur laquelle un guetteur aussi de sable, tient haut un pavillon de gueules, le tout accompagné au canton senestre du chef d'un croissant contourné d'or adextré d'une étoile du même.
Timms gives the same blazon, with the following English translation:
Azure two sailing ships sable with masts argent and sails gules a
champagne vert in sinister chief a mullet and a crescent contourned in
fess or in sinister base on a jetty of the third masoned a man of the
second holding a flag of the fourth.
Timms probably could not find an image of the coat of arms and messed
up the elements of the ships, which have the masts sable, the sails
argent and a pennant gules on each mast.
The logotype has kept the blue sky and the green sea, but only one
ship with only one mast; the jetty and the man holding a flag have been
removed; the crescent has been mirrored and tilted, as well as the
star, which has been moved upwards in relation to the crescent.
Timms believes that the coat of arms of Le Tréport looks more like a
painting like a coat of arms. We agree with him, mostly because this
coat of arms tells a story, whereas it should remain symbolic or
allegoric. From that point of view, the logotype, which no longer tells
a story because the perspective has disappeared, is closer to the
heraldic tradition than the coat of arms.
Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 18 September 2005