The Vendée Heart

A double heart, interlaced and crowned, with a cross above it: this is the Vendée heart, or Cœur vendéen. It is the most recognisable emblem of the Vendée, a department in western France, and today it serves as the department’s logo. Its documented origin is the royalist uprising of 1793. There is also an older tradition, that of a silver jewel, which is not backed by primary sources. Here we separate the two.

From the Sacred Heart to the uprising

The symbol became associated with the Vendée when the rebellion broke out in 1793, during the French Revolution. It was the Sacred Heart, a Catholic devotion, which served as the emblem of the counter-revolutionary insurgents of the region. Before the Revolution, the Vendée was part of Poitou and had no coat of arms or flag of its own.

The jewel tradition

According to Vendée Tourisme, the department’s tourism agency, the heart began as an openwork silver pin worn only by the men of Bas-Poitou. Later, women adopted it and added the crown and the cross. This is a popular explanation. We have found no document that confirms it, and some websites place its origin much further back in time without any source.

Official emblem or trademark?

• Flag of the departmental council: red and white, with the logo in the centre, according to Wikipedia. The article cites no legal instrument that establishes it.
• Logo: the double heart is the basis of the department’s logo. Wikipedia says it became the modern logo in 1989, but the logo file on Wikipedia dates its current use from 2015. The sources disagree on the current version, and we could not settle this with official documents.
• Registered trademark: according to the local press (Le Reporter sablais), the logo was registered at the INPI by the former Conseil général de la Vendée. We have not consulted the INPI register, so this is a press report.
• Coat of arms: Wikipedia describes a departmental coat of arms with the double heart, but the heraldic description it gives has no citation.

What it means

No legal text assigns it a meaning. What is said about loyalty, identity or faith is later interpretation. What is documented is the use the insurgents of 1793 made of it, when the Sacred Heart identified the rebellion against the Republic.

Where it appears

• Department logo, its most widespread form today.
• Flag of the departmental council, with the logo in the centre.
• Departmental coat of arms, according to Wikipedia, though without a citation that confirms it.