The next day we took a cruise from Fouras out to Fort Boyard, which has become a symbol of the Charente-Maritime département due to the French Fort Boyard thriller game show. This show has run for twenty-three years and is broadcast in many countries.
What makes
Fort Boyard so unique is that it stands in the middle of the ocean like an
island. It actually sits on a sand bank
between two islands. One island is the
Ile d’Aix and the other is the Ile d’Oléron.
Salt, called
“white gold,” from the Ile d’Oléron has made this area prey to invasion and
occupations for centuries. According to
Thierry Sauzeau in Fort Boyard from the Petite Histoire Series, the Celts
produced salt here at the end of the Iron Age.
He further writes that salt became especially sought after due to the
long distance ship voyages, beginning in the fifteenth century; Long ship
voyages required salt for preserving food.
Other world
events that caused salt to be as valuable as gold were the growth of
consumption of herring and cod, which both required salt for their preservation
to enhance trade possibilities in lands far from the ocean Sauzeau writes.
Protecting
revenue from this valuable commodity as well as protecting France from the
English, who could use the islands of Aix and Oléron as staging posts for an
invasion, made the Fort Boyard important for kings even if it took centuries to
build. Sauzeau writes that the first
monarch to consider building a fortress in the middle of the ocean was Louis
XIV (1600 – 1715). Louix XIV’s military
engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633 – 1707) downplayed the idea due
to its difficulty to build.
Louis XV
(1710 – 1774) actually had plans drawn up for the fort, but did not have it
built due to a lack of funds and worry that the English would destroy the
construction site according to Sauzeau.
The first stone for Fort Boyard was laid in 1804 under Napoléon
Bonaparte (1769 – 1821) according to our cruise commentator.
However, after
Napoleon’s naval forces were defeated at Trafalgar by the British under Lord
Nelson (1758 – 1805), Napoleon preferred his land forces to naval ones; work on
Fort Boyard was suspended in 1809 according to Sauzeau.
Fort Boyard
was completed under Napoleon III (1808 – 1873) during the Second Empire in
France. Fort Boyard was eventually used
as what the French call a “passive” fort, a jail, a private residence, and now
the scene of a thriller game show.
The Fort
Boyard television series makes use of the fort’s individual cells to have one
team per show try to win keys that will help them solve a puzzle at the show’s
end. If the team solves the puzzle, contestants have the chance to amass gold
coins before tigers that appear to be menacing enter the coin drop area.
Some of the
show’s challenges include bungee jumping off the top of the fort to grab a key
while others require dealing with spiders, rats, and snakes in close quarters
in addition to mud wrestling, strength, and strategy games.
The day we
went out to see the fort, the ocean was choppy as a storm was blowing towards
the coast. When the children saw Fort
Boyard, they screamed and their parents and grandparents took photographs.
I think all
the French rulers who wanted to build Fort Boyard would like to see it used a
game site to test strength, courage, and intelligence in the television show.
The seaside restaurants in Fouras can replenish your forces after a trip out to Fort Boyard.
The seaside restaurants in Fouras can replenish your forces after a trip out to Fort Boyard.
By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
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| Laurent Paget Photographer |
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