Vitré

Vitré stands on the eastern frontier of Brittany, its castle overlooking the River Vilaine and streets of timber-framed houses. Merchants gathered the hemp cloth woven in the surrounding country and carried it to distant markets, making the fortified town a prosperous centre of trade.

The Reformation found influential supporters in Vitré, where a Protestant college flourished in the later sixteenth century and served the local Reformed community. During the Wars of Religion the town resisted the Catholic League: from March to August 1589 it endured a siege by the Duke of Mercœur's forces until royal troops brought relief. Protestant worship continued here when it had become clandestine in much of Brittany, leaving Vitré an important centre of the Reformed faith as well as commerce.