Chartreuse d'Auray & Champ des Martyrs
A short drive north of Auray town centre, the Chartreuse d'Auray is one of Brittany's most atmospheric and least-visited historic sites — a 17th-century Carthusian monastery complex that became the burial place of more than 950 Royalist soldiers executed after the disastrous Quiberon expedition of 1795. The adjacent Champ des Martyrs (Field of Martyrs) is a place of genuine, quiet power.
The History You Need to Know
In July 1795, a force of French Royalist émigrés landed at the Quiberon peninsula hoping to spark a counter-revolutionary uprising in Brittany. The Republican army crushed them within days, and more than 950 prisoners were brought to a field outside Auray and shot. The Chartreuse monastery was subsequently used as the burial site, and a neoclassical expiatory chapel — the Chapelle Expiatoire — was built in 1829 to commemorate the dead.
The chapel's interior is stark and moving: white marble, a long list of names carved into the walls, and an atmosphere of genuine solemnity. It remains an active pilgrimage site for descendants of the Chouans and Royalist families, particularly on 27 July each year, the anniversary of the executions.
Exploring the Monastery Grounds
The Carthusian monastery itself — founded in 1482 — is partially open to visitors and retains its cloister, chapter house and a series of individual monk's cells arranged around a garden courtyard. The architecture is austere and beautiful, and the grounds are kept in immaculate order by a small community that still maintains the site.
The Champ des Martyrs itself is a simple enclosed field a few hundred metres from the chapel, marked by a stone monument. In high summer it is surrounded by wildflower meadows; in autumn, low mist often settles over it at dawn, creating an unforgettable, melancholic atmosphere. Almost no foreign tourists find their way here — which makes it all the more affecting.
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