LES SABLES  D'OLONNE, a seaport of western France, capital of an arrondissement of the department of Vendee, on an inlet ofthe Atlantic seaboard, 23 M . S.W. of La Roche-sur-Yon by rail . Pop . (1906) 11,847 . The town stands between the sea on the south and the port on the north, while on the west it is separated by a channel from the suburb of La Chaume, built at the foot of a range of dunes 65 ft. high, which terminates southwards in the rocky peninsula of L'Aiguille . The beautiful smoothly sloping beach, r m. in length, is much frequented by bathers . To the north of Sables extend salt-marshes and oyster-parks, yielding 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 oysters per annum . Sables has a church built in the Late Gothic style towards the middle of the 17th century . The port, consisting of a tidal basin and a wet-dock, is accessible to vessels of 2000 tons, but is dangerous when the winds are from the south-west . The lighthouse of Barges, a mile out at sea to the west, is visible for 17 to 18 nautical miles . The inhabitants are employed largely in sardine and tunny fishing; there are imports of coal, wood, petroleum and phosphates . Boat-building and sardine-preserving are carried on .

The town has a sub-prefecture and a tribunal of first instance . Founded by Basque or

Spanish sailors, Sables was the first place in Poitou invaded by the Normans in 817 . Louis XI., who went there in 1472, granted the inhabitants various privileges, improved the harbour, and fortified the entrance . Captured and recaptured during the Wars of Religion, the town afterwards became a nursery of hardy sailors and privateers, who harassed the Spaniards and afterwards the English . In 1696 Sables was bombarded by the combined fleets of England and Holland . In the middle of the 18th century hurricanes caused grievous damage to town and harbour .