The history of Lorient begins with the town's foundation in 1666 as a base for the French East India Company. This role was reinforced in 1675 during the Dutch War, when it was decided to abandon the company's other base in Le Havre in favor of Lorient alone. Other monopoly trading companies subsequently moved in and used the port and surrounding enclosure until the end of the Ancien Régime, helping to provide the town with its facilities; the site thus became the main agglomeration in southern Brittany from the mid-18th century onwards. From 1688, the port was also used by the Royal Navy, which had its ships built and armed there.
Lorient's political influence grew stronger after the French Revolution, and the city took on an administrative role under the First Empire. While commercial activities remained low-key in the first half of the 19th century due to frequent conflicts, military activities gained in importance. The arsenals benefited from successive waves of modernization driven by steam power, followed by steel construction. From the end of the 19th century, the development of the fishing industry brought a new pole of activity to the town, which was strengthened by the creation of the Keroman fishing port in the early 1920s.
The Second World War was a key period in the town's history. The Keroman peninsula was chosen by the occupying forces to house the largest submarine base of the time, leading to the almost total destruction of the town by Allied bombing between January and February 1943. The occupation of the city lasted until the surrender of the Lorient pocket on May 10, 1945. This marked the start of an era of reconstruction that would create a new face for the city, lasting until the early 1960s.
The town's recent history has been marked by a series of successive crises, caused by the decline in activity at the Keroman fishing port in the 1980s and 1990s, and the closure of the submarine base in 1997. The city then embarked on a phase of reconversion, marked by cultural development driven by its Interceltic Festival, university development driven by the opening of the University of Southern Brittany in 1995, and economic development based on activities linked to yachting and offshore racing.
Before the town
The oldest traces of human presence in the region date back to the Neolithic period, and are attested by the discovery of polished axes in the Kerolay district.
In the Middle Ages, the mouth of the Blavet became a frontier zone from the 11th century onwards. Its left bank belonged to the châtellenie de Nostang, a ducal and then royal land, while its right bank, where Lorient was to be established, belonged to the Kemenet-Héboé, long a possession of the Viscounts of Rohan. Between 1264 and 1278, the walled town of Hennebont was founded on the left bank of the Blavet and became the seat of the châtellenie de Nostang..
At the end of the 16th century, the town of Port-Louis at the mouth of the Blavet began to take on military and commercial importance following the wars of the League, and a citadel was built there from 1590 to secure the entrance to the harbor where the Blavet flows. The shipowners who had been based in Hennebont up until this time abandoned the town in favor of Port-Louis, and Hennebont began to turn its activities towards the hinterland..
Modern period
Creation and early development of the town The French East India Company (Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) was created by Colbert in 1664,. to compete with the Dutch East India Company, which had a virtual monopoly on trade to the Indian Ocean. In October 1664, the company set up in the port of Le Havre, but lacked the space to expand, and the anchorage was exposed to English and Dutch aggression.René Favier, Les Européens et les Indes orientales, Gap-Paris, Ophrys, 1997, . At the end of the same year, the company bought land in Bayonne.. Trouble broke out in the town in 1665, as the inhabitants were opposed to the project, and the company had to look for another location. The town of Paimbœuf was considered, but the Governor of Port-Louis, then the King's Lieutenant General in Brittany, used all his influence and Colbert ordered the company's directors to settle in the well-protected harbor of Port-Louis..
In June 1666, Louis XIV issued a decree granting the Compagnie land in Port-Louis, as well as on the other side of the harbor at Le Faouédic.Literally "little beech wood", this Faouédic moor lies at the confluence of the Blavet and Scorff rivers. In August 1666, one of the company's directors, Denis Langlois, bought land at the end of the harbor, at the confluence of the Scorff and Blavet rivers, and had slipways built. At first, the site functioned solely as an annex to the Port-Louis facilities, where the company's offices and stores were located.. Over the following years, the site was threatened with abandonment several times, but in 1675, in the midst of the Franco Dutch War, the French East India Company decided to abandon its Le Havre base, which was too exposed in wartime, and transfer its infrastructure there. A chapel, workshops, forges and offices were built on the site, which became known as "l'Enclos", and the company left the shores of Port-Louis for good..
The Royal Navy also established itself on the site, under the impetus of Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Seignelay, son of Colbert, who had inherited his father's position as Secretary of State for the Navy. Privateers from Saint-Malo also found refuge here at the same time. Work to adapt the port began in 1687. The yard was requisitioned for the Royal Navy in 1688 when the League of Augsburg war broke out, and the first warships were armed there in 1690. Several ships were also built here, and between 1690 and 1708, eighteen military vessels left the yard. These shipyards attracted between 800 and 900 workers, mainly from Provence, Normandy, the Basque Country and Nantes. The Compagnie des Indes was also forced to cede several structures to the Royale: the general store, the rope works and the sail loft were sold in 1689, as well as part of the living quarters the following year..
The town developed outside the perimeter of the Enclos, in compliance with a 1700 ruling that forced people to leave the area around the Enclos and settle on the Faouédic moor. In 1709, the parish of Lorient was created from that of Plœmeur. By 1702, the town had some 6,000 inhabitants, but the activities of both the East India Company and the Royal Navy remained limited, and the town began to decline..
In 1903, Alfred Trescat superimposed the 1903 and 1703 plans of Lorient.Notice of the plan on the Archives municipales de Lorient website.
Developments under the Perpetual Company of the East Indies (Compagnie perpétuelle des Indes)
Commercial boom The town experienced a new boom when John Law de Lauriston created the Compagnie perpétuelle des Indes (Perpetual Company of the East Indies) in 1719 by purchasing several other trading companies, and chose Lorient as his base of operations.. The Royal Navy was reluctant to let the new company use the facilities at l'Enclos, but on June 28, 1719, the Conseil de Marine ordered the company to vacate the premises, which it did by the end of the same year..
Despite the collapse of the Law system in 1720, the city underwent a new phase of development. On average, 400,000 pounds of pepper, 500,000 pounds of tea, 1.5 to 2 million pounds of coffee, 150,000 pieces of cotton and muslin and 150,000 pieces of Chinese porcelain pass through the city every year.. It was during this period that the town took part in the triangular trade, with 156 ships deporting some 43,000 slaves between 1720 and 1790.René Estienne, « Les archives des compagnies commerciales et la traite : l’exemple de la Compagnie des Indes », Service historique de la Défense, Lorient, january 2009, 19, , accessed on www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr le 6 june 2011. At a time when the Nantes trade was slowing down and the Compagnie des Indes obtained "the exclusive privilege of trading in Guinea, which includes the slave trade", Lorient established itself as France's leading slave port between 1723 and 1725.. In 1732, the Compagnie perpétuelle des Indes decided to transfer the headquarters of all its sales from Nantes to Lorient, and commissioned architect Jean-Charles Gabriel to build new ashlar buildings to accommodate these activities and embellish the Enclos area. From 1734 onwards, sales were held here, and up to twenty-five million livres tournois were transacted.. However, the company's monopoly was abolished in 1769 under the influence of the physiocrats..
Shipbuilding capacity increased with the construction of a new slipway in 1728, and the first 600-ton vessel, the Philibert, was built in 1730. From 1732 onwards, three ships were built each year, enabling the company to renew its entire fleet within twelve years. In 1755, three new slipways were opened at Caudan on the opposite bank of the Scorff..
Structure of the town The town benefited from the company's prosperity. In 1738, it had a population of 14,000, rising to 20,000 including the suburbs of Kerentrech, Merville, La Perrière, Calvin and Keryado. Most of the town's population came from Brittany. Of the sailing personnel present, 42.8% came from the parish of Port-Louis and 25.1% from that of Saint-Malo.. As for officers, 40% came from the parish of Saint-Malo and 28% from Port-Louis.. The remaining 88% of immigrants came from the Breton-speaking departments of Morbihan, Finistère and Côtes-d'Armor,. forcing the town to take this linguistic element into account on several occasions.Yann Lukas gives the example of the 1756 recruitment of Bretonnants to control the city's entrances.Yann Lukas 1997, p. 33
In 1735, new streets were laid out within the city walls. In 1738, the town acquired the status of "communauté de ville". Beautification work began, including street paving, the construction of quays and docks along the banks of the Faouédic stream, and the demolition of thatched cottages to be replaced by houses modelled on the Enclos. Walls were erected in 1744 to close off the town, and were put to the test in September 1746 by a British raid against the town. (Siege of Lorient). A municipal hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu, was opened in 1740 thanks to a philanthropist's donation to the town, and as early as 1754 the town and the Compagnie perpétuelle des Indes were planning to build a joint health establishment. In 1766, this was achieved by merging the municipal structure with another of the company's, and in 1771 it was upgraded to a second-class hospital. The disappearance of the Compagnie perpétuelle des Indes in 1769 led to a one-seventh reduction in the town's population..
The town's status as a "communauté de ville", granted in 1738, enabled it to send representatives to the Parlement of Rennes. Between 1738 and 1751, it obtained some 170,000 pounds to modernize its port facilities, as well as a reduction in its capitation tax (per capita tax) between 1746 and 1750 following the British raid on the town. However, the town's administrative and political weight remained below its economic weight, and it depended on other nearby towns such as Hennebont for justice and other matters.
End of the ancien régime The American War of Independence brought a surge of activity to the town from 1775 onwards, and several privateers used the town as a home port. From 1778, John Paul Jones used the town and its port as a base for his ship, the Bonhomme Richard,. and many of his war catches were repatriated here.. In all, 121 catches made on the British by John Paul Jones and others were brought to and sold in Lorient.. At the end of the war in 1783, several transatlantic lines were opened from Lorient to the United States.