Last modified: 2004-01-17 by ivan sache
Keywords: cotes-d'armor | erquy |
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Erquy is a small sea resort and fishing port (especially involved
in scallop fishing as other ports in the St. Brieuc Bay) of ca. 3,500
inhabitants, located on the Côte d'Emeraude (Emerald
Coast).
Its inhabitants are called Reginéens, because Erquy was
supposed, probably wrongly, to have been built on the site of the
Gallo-Roman city of Reginea.
In Erquy can be seen a very rare example of preserved cannonball kiln. Such kilns were parts of the defence system established by Vauban on the French coasts. The kiln allowed to heat the cannonballs before firing the cannon, so that the cannonballs could set fire to the English vessels. Interestingly, the memory of such heated cannonballs has been preserved in the widely used expression tirer à boulets rouges sur quelqu'un, litt. 'firing someone with red cannonballs' (red because of their temperature), which could be translated (according to Robert-Collins lexicon) as 'to lay into somebody tooth and nail'.
Ivan Sache, 16 June 1998
The municipal flag of Erquy is shown in P. Rault's book [rau98]. It is made of a white field charged with the municipal arms:
Vert a mermaid or a chief of ermine
Ivan Sache, 16 June 1998
![[CV Erquy]](../images/f/fr-22~eq.gif)
by I