Martin Family, you must read this…
…this is the city from which the Martins originated in France.
The story is as follows…Robert Martin was born in 1600 in Nantes, Bretagne (Brittany), which is now part of France. He died in 1666 in Port Royal, Acadia (which is modern day Nova Scotia). In 1634, when he was 33 or 34 years old, he was married to 14 year-old Marguerite Landry (daughter of Jean Claude Landry and Marie Salle). Marguerite was born in 1617, also in Nantes. They are the couple that left Brittany (from La Rochelle) to settle in New France, which was Acadia (now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Northern Maine). It is estimated that they came from France in 1632. From there, three generations lived in Acadia, followed by Quebec, New Brunswick and then finally Maine (Frenchville, St. Agatha, and then Van Buren).
So, in case you have ever wondered what France looks like in the region that they come from, I give you some photos of Nantes. It was a really beautiful place…some have called it the Venice of the West because it had beautiful waterways. Nantes was the historic capital of Brittany during the city’s golden age in the 15th century. The town’s wealth came from shipbuilding and commerce and was once the busiest port in France.
The pictures I took are mostly from the Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne. This was the home to the Dukes of Brittany during the golden age of Francois II and his daughter Anne. Henri IV’s Edict of Nantes, which gave freedom of worship to the Huguenots was signed here in 1598.
The rest of the pictures are mostly from the cathedral of St. Peter in Nantes, where Francois II and Marguerite de Foix are buried. On September 9, 1488, Duke Francois II died, leaving the duchy of Brittany to his 10 year old daughter Anne. Three years later, Charles VIII, king of France, forced the young heiress to marry him. When he died three years later, she returned to Nantes and commissioned the tomb. She remarried the new King of France=, Louis XII in the Chateau de Nantes.
