Part 37 - Mounted Gendarmerie, Nantes, France

14 cm x 11 cm; Postcard print

A postcard image showing a group of gendarmeries in Nantes during the ‘Journée du 22 Février’ (Day of February 22nd). The image shows the mounted gendarmes in front of the cathedral in the city. The photograph is credited to the newspaper ‘L’Express de l’Ouest’. The event is most likely associated with a a controversy labelled ‘Les Inventaires’ (The Inventories), a period of conflict between the French state and the Catholic Church in the first decade of the twentieth century. A manuscript annotation on the reverse of the postcard reads ‘Happy Feast of St. Patrick’.