A cultivated island

Closing off the beach, Ile de la Comtesse, accessible at low tide, is named in honour of Marguerite de Mayenne (1208-1248), who received it from her husband Henri d’Avaugour, Lord of Penthièvre. She gave her name to the beach and the surrounding area. At the end of his life, a widower, Henri d’Avaugour became a Benedictine monk at the Cordeliers de Lehon convent and donated part of his possessions, including Ile de la Comtesse, to the monastery, which remained the owner until the French Revolution.

Inventories of the monastery’s property drawn up in the 17th century show that the island was once cultivated and a source of income.

A botanical garden?

Owned by the local council since 1975, the island has had a succession of owners throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

One of them was Auguste Le Maoût (1817-1897), a pharmacist exiled to London because of his republican ideas and a friend of Victor Hugo. His wife had acquired Ile de la Comtesse in 1872 and owned a villa in Saint-Quay-Portrieux. It was Le Maoût and his wife who had the walls built, which are still visible today, to shelter a vegetable garden and botanical garden from the wind, whose plants were used in pharmaceutical preparations. A fishpond at the foot of the island was used to store fish and shellfish. A small house occupied the southern part of the island. 

Only a few stones remain to show that it was once there.

Eugène Rimmel

Auguste Le Maoût undoubtedly knew another of Victor Hugo’s friends: the great perfumer Eugène Rimmel. But who was Eugène Rimmel? 

Born in Paris in 1820, he moved to London to open a perfume boutique with his father. Eugène was a successful perfume designer and businessman. His perfumes opened the doors to London’s high society, he became a supplier to the English court and his reputation was international. A creator of cosmetic products, he invented the first non-toxic mascara, rimmel, whose name has since become generic.

It is said that in Saint Quay Portrieux, where he owned a villa, Eugène Rimmel harvested plants from the Ile de la Comtesse and neighbouring fields to make his perfumes and the famous “toilet vinegar” that made him famous. Eugène Rimmel’s daughter and her husband bought the Ile de la Comtesse in 1898.

Did the plants on Ile de la Comtesse contribute to Eugène Rimmel’s fame? They probably did. But… maybe it’s just a nice story!

What remains of this garden? 

Ile de la Comtesse is made up of a granite bedrock with a small amount of arable land, some of which has been brought in for cultivation. 

As soon as you enter the access road, the sea fennel, one of the rare plants capable of surviving in places regularly exposed to sea spray, indicates that this is a place between land and sea…. 

The north and east sides are home to the usual Breton cliff species, whose seeds have been carried by the wind and birds: hawthorns, blackthorns, hardy privet, ferns, valerian, wallflowers…

But on the south and west sides, many of the species are clearly the remains of the old gardens where the walls created protected areas.

Fig trees, pear trees that were once trellised, garden iris, agapanthus, tamarisk, laurel (or viburnum), boxwood, silver willow, old rose bushes, holly, rosemary, garrigue euphorbia and large Lambert cypresses have not been blown in by the winds!