“The sea sells cheap” say the natives, who are mostly engaged in the salt industry, as one would infer from the foregoing. Competition has cut considerably into the industry of recovering salt from the sea-water, but it is still kept up, and these little Breton coast villages depend upon it, and on fishing, for their sustenance.
St. Nazaire, where the sea first meets the waters of the Loire, is quite new, created but yesterday by the march of progress. Tradition connects the site of this busy port—the seventh in rank among the ports of France—with the ancient Gallo-Roman port of Corbilon. No trace of its former appellation exists since the sixth century, when Gregory of Tours, in the first history of France, mentions the settlement as having been pillaged by a Breton chief, and refers to it as Vic-Saint-Nazaire, which nearly approaches its present name.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the market-town was called Port Nazaire, and was defended by a castle erected by the Dukes of Brittany.
St. Nazaire
Modern navigation has replaced the old sailing-vessels, and to-day, with its coastwise and foreign trade and its great shipyards, St. Nazaire is a busy, bustling town. The blemish it has, in the eyes of most, will be its general aspect of modernity and its uncompromising, right-angled, straight streets, laid out on a plan which suggests that of Chicago, if one make an allowance for the difference in magnitude. St. Nazaire surpasses Chicago, however, in having a sea front, instead of a lake front, and its hotels are better and cost less. What more should a passing traveller want of a modern city?
Between Nantes and St. Nazaire, on the granite flank of Sillon de Bretagne, sits Savenay, as if its houses were ranged around the steps of an amphitheatre. It has fallen considerably from its proud position of having been the flourishing capital of the district. It still is the largest town, but none of the honours go with its size; decay has fallen upon it, and the hotels are dull, sad places, and even the omnibus from the railway has stopped its journeys.