Fête de la Meunerie

The Fête de la Meunerie: a 1920s village resurrected, every two years

On the banks of the Autise, in this corner of Vendée that centuries have spared, the village of Nieul-sur-l'Autise awakens one weekend every two years in another time. The Fête de la Meunerie is much more than an ordinary festival or cultural event: it is a total and immersive reconstruction of an early 20th-century French village, with its inhabitants, its smells, its sounds, and its vanished rhythms.

The event has been held for over thirty years every two years, in odd-numbered years, on Pentecost weekend. The last edition took place from June 7 to 9, 2025. The next is scheduled from May 15 to 17, 2027.

800 reenactors to resurrect 1920s France

The number is staggering: nearly 800 volunteers — residents of the village and surrounding communes, local history enthusiasts, members of partner associations — don the clothes of their great-grandparents to bring back to life the daily existence of the 1920s in the Vendée bocage. Peasant women in aprons and Poitevin headdresses, wheelwrights, millers, blacksmiths, schoolteachers, rural policemen, street vendors, washerwomen, knife grinders, and wedding musicians: each plays their role with a commitment and attention to detail that astound visitors.

The mill, the beating heart of the festival

At the center of all attention stands the water mill of Nieul-sur-l'Autise, put into operation for the occasion. Costumed millers explain to visitors the secrets of milling, water management, and the mechanical operation of this monument of rural heritage. The grain is ground before the visitors' eyes, and the flour obtained is used to bake bread in the wood-fired oven under the watchful eye of the baker of yesteryear. This living chain, from grain to bread, concretely and sensually illustrates the rural economy that brought prosperity to the Vendée bocage until mechanization.

Old trades on display

Around the mill, a vast village of old trades sets up in the squares and streets. Coopers, clog makers, weavers, bobbin lacemakers, basket makers, herbalists, and distillers recreate their workshops with an authenticity that local ethnography enthusiasts particularly appreciate. Regular demonstrations allow visitors to observe technical gestures, ask questions, and sometimes even participate. Children can try simple manual activities supervised by volunteers.

Village life in all its aspects

The reenactment goes beyond simple artisanal demonstrations to touch upon all aspects of 1920s village social life. The communal school welcomes children in black smocks under the authority of a strict but benevolent teacher. The market square teems with vendors and farmers selling their vegetables, poultry, and farm products. The village café serves drinks under vintage advertising parasols, while an orchestra plays the polkas and waltzes that made the countryside dance a century ago. The washhouse welcomes washerwomen who beat laundry while chatting.

An event driven by local passion

The Fête de la Meunerie is above all the result of exceptional community commitment. Organized by the Comité de la Fête de la Meunerie in conjunction with the Maison de la Meunerie en Vendée, with the support of the commune of Rives-d'Autise and local associations, it mobilizes hundreds of people for many months before the event: costume sewing, set construction, demonstration preparation, reenactor training. This collective investment creates a sense of local pride and intergenerational transmission that gives the festival its particular warmth and authentic character.

The Abbey of Nieul-sur-l'Autise as a backdrop

The Fête de la Meunerie takes place in a doubly exceptional heritage setting: not only the ancestral mill, but also the prestigious Abbey Saint-Vincent de Nieul-sur-l'Autise, founded in the 11th century and linked to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, which watches over the festivities from its ancient stone walls. Guided tours of the abbey and its remarkable Romanesque cloister are offered to the public during the festival weekend.