La Grisse«, an original and strange name...
The name «La Grisse» is unique; it is found nowhere else, apart from a few similar names such as «Grissay», a farm which gave its name to a motorway service area in the Vendée near Les Essarts, or the «Fiefs des Grisses» in Olonne/Mer...
With no clear explanation, we can only assume: The first and most obvious idea is quite simply linked to the «grey» and clayey soil here, which if distorted with the accent or the spelling could have become »Grisse«, but then, it is very surprising not to find this type of name everywhere else along this marly line, between plain and bocage...
Another, more complex, possibility is that it comes from the very sticky clay soil, which is said to be a little too amorous here! ... It could therefore come from the word «graisse», which in Vendéen dialect is phonetically pronounced «grëyce», hence «grisse» ... ???? It's a bit far-fetched, but why not?
Another explanation could be that it was once so isolated and desolate, a «sheep wasteland» lost at the end of the world, a marshy wasteland, a «Grisse»! ... In fact, based on the testimony of an English client who was amazed by the similarity, this type of landscape is called «Graize» in Old Welsh of Celtic origin... So why not? ... I like this hypothesis, because it fits the terrain perfectly...
Finally, etymological research into the 3-part name «Gr-is-se» provides a more scientific and undoubtedly more accurate answer... The prefix «Gr» is originally the Celtic «Kra» meaning «rock-stone», which became «Gra» in Gaulish, then «Gr» in Old Poitevin, from which came the common names «Groix, Groie(s), or even Grière», found in our area, meaning a flat and very stony place, which is the case at La Grisse. The mediant «is» is a general hydronymic root of Gallic origin meaning «water flow» (Is with «ar» for «river» giving: Isar, Isara, Isère, etc...) which also corresponds precisely to la Grisse, the bed of a small winter stream that is now channelled, but still exists. As for the suffix «sse», it is a diminutive of «asse», the vowel disappearing in Old Poitevin, derived from «Casse or Gasse», meaning locally a muddy and marshy place at the bottom of a very flat valley... This is exactly the case of the Grisse site, once a marsh linked to the nearby Marais Poitevin by the Troussepoil Valley. The Latin root also goes back to «Quassus» (break, depression dug by the water down to the Bri) and the name Groies, Groie, Grois or Groix can more easily be found throughout the area, always linked to a superficial and fairly flat stony spot. ... It is therefore reasonable to think that this wide stony and muddy plateau in the shape of a marshy shore located at the bottom of a wide very flat depression became «GRISSE» by contraction...
Origins of the Vendée ...
Who doesn't know the Vendée?
Located on the Côte de Lumière, the Vendée is the only French department that is also a recognised tourist region! ...
Origin of the name «Vendée»: The Vendée takes its name from the river that flows through Fontenay le Comte (located in the extreme south-east of today's Vendée), the town that was the original capital of Bas Poitou, then of the new département created in 1790 during the Revolution (La Roche/Yon did not exist as a town at the time)...
But the Vendée could have been called something else ...
Indeed, when they were created, the most common rule was that each newly-created French department should take the name of the main river running through it. The Vendée has a major coastal river, the Lay, with two major branches, the Grand Lay and the Petit Lay. The Vendée should therefore logically have been called the «Deux Lays», like its Poitevin neighbour, the «Deux Sèvres»...
But, as the story goes, the two representatives from Bas Poitou at the new Constituent Assembly in 1790 were both short and tall, and not very spoilt by Nature either! Naturally, when they suggested the name «Deux Lays», the whole Assembly burst out laughing! ... The President then suggested that they find another name for their Department... So the more glamorous name of «Vendée», corresponding to the little river running through the current Chef Lieu, was voted in...
To complete the story, if La Roche/Yon had been today's Chief Prefecture, our Department would no doubt have been called «L'Yon», like «Yonne» in another Department... Just goes to show that history sometimes has little to do with anything! ...
His motto: «Utrique Fidelis» - «Faithful to both».»
Its emblem: an interlaced double red heart on a white background ... part-vendee
In the West of France at the beginning of the 18th century, the double heart surmounted by a cross was originally the symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary, in the era of the re-evangeliser Grignon de Montfort... But it was best known in its simple form, taken up by the Vendean rebels of 1793 «Faithful to God and the King»...
Finally, in the 20th century, the double heart became the official emblem of the Vendée, symbolising the rediscovered unity of the two Vendées, the «Blanche» and the «Bleue»... Loyal to both! ...