“I’ve been living on the island since my childwood. I worked with my father and grandfather, who were small business owners, before becoming an architect. I used the traditional 17th and 18th century homes as references for the houses I built over my 40-year career. What’s my favourite place on the island? With a doubt, it’s the hamlet of Le Vieil. The plots of land there are small, the buildings are modest, and the seaside houses are an integrated part of the village.”
- Can you believe this is where the first French submarine was presented to the French government in 1832? Brutus Villeroy, then a schoolteacher in Noirmoutier, invited government authorities for a test run of his bathyscaphe, with himself on board, facing the Plage du Mardi Gras beach. A 20-minute dive marked the success of the trial, although his invention met with only a faint response, so that he would eventually grow weary of waiting and decide to sell his patent to the United States. All that remains of this episode is the inventor’s name on a very pretty street in Le Vieil.
- Another key happening in Le Vieil was the filming of a scene from César and Rosalie on the Plage du Mardi Gras in 1972, featuring Romy Schneider and Yves Montand, surrounded by Samy Frey and Isabelle Huppert.
