Village

The village is a location in Beauty and the Beast. It was the place Belle, Maurice, and Philippe lived at until they moved into the Beast's Castle, and was described to be a relatively quiet, peaceful, secluded village with every day like the day before. It was a provincial farming community which had a flower shop, a bakery, a wig shop, a bookstore, and a tavern. Belle's Cottage was just a walk away. Because it was a farming community, livestock, such as sheep and pigs are often seen in the area. It was located in a mountainous region with a riverbed close by headed to the west behind Belle's Cottage, indicated by the sun setting behind it. The population of the village, or at least those who composed the mob late into the film, was at least 50 according to a lyric in "The Mob Song".
New Fantasyland in Walt Disney World has a scaled down version of the town.
==Appearances==
===Beauty and the Beast===
In the first movie, the village was one of the settings of the film. In the beginning, Belle, while walking to the bookstore to return a book she had just finished, muses about how every single day is always the same, while the villagers comment on how Belle is odd, and eventually Gaston finds her after returning from a hunting trip and pursues her ("Belle"). Just as she was returning home with a new book (implied to be Sleeping Beauty), Gaston ambushes her and chastises her for reading books, as in his mind it was unbecoming of a woman. She eventually rushes back to her cottage when an explosion occurs in the cellar.
Later, at least thirteen villagers arrived to set up a wedding for Gaston and Belle at Gaston's request, which he requested before proposing to Belle. However, Belle threw him in the mud, causing her to once again complain about her lot in life ("Belle reprise"), before learning from Philippe that her father went missing. That night, Gaston was still fuming about the failure of the wedding, eventually resulting in the villagers singing praises for him ("Gaston"). Afterwards, they learn from Maurice that Belle was held prisoner by the Beast, although they laughed him off, with Gaston also coming up with an idea to force Belle into marrying him via blackmailing her with Maurice potentially being arrested if she refused, an idea most of the village was implied to be aware of and support ("Gaston reprise"). After meeting with the asylum warden, Gaston and LeFou attempt to get Belle and Maurice, but they were nowhere to be found, causing Gaston to have LeFou stand guard to find them when they returned. An indeterminate time later, they eventually did return after Maurice caught an illness and was near death, with Belle being freed by the Beast to save her father, with LeFou informing Gaston and presumably the other villagers of the news. After learning that the Beast was indeed real, they then try to attack his castle in fear thanks to Gaston inciting the mob further ("The Mob Song").
===Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas===
The village is not actually seen in the film itself, but it was indirectly alluded to by the villagers coming to the Prince's castle for a Christmas party, after they have been pardoned for their crime led by Gaston at least a year after the events of the first film.
===Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World===
Like in The Enchanted Christmas, the village is not actually seen in the film itself, but it is briefly seen in the introduction for Belle's Magical World, using a scene from the original movie.Belle's Magical World screencap
===Beauty and the Beast (2017)===
Like in the animated film, the village was one of the main settings in the remake, named Villeneuve (a reference to the author of the original fairy-tale Gabrielle Susanne Barbot deVilleneuve), and was revealed to have been taxed by the Prince for the sake of his castle. It was also described by Maurice by a "small village" with "small-minded people", but also "safe", (due to the death of Belle's mother). It is also revealed that Belle and Maurice were not originally from Villeneuve, but instead from Paris, but moved to the village after Belle's mother caught the plague (which Belle learned via traveling to Paris via the Beast's magical book).
Also, the design of Villeneuve in this film was based on the French village of Conques.
===The New Adventures of Beauty and the Beast===
In this two-issue comic set before the events of the film, the village has brief appearances. In the first issue, when Mrs. Potts recalls to Chip their Master's behavior as a kid and young adult, the village (or at least another village Belle had lived at) made an appearance where the Prince was accosting a woman for blocking the road, with Belle witnessing this and asking her father whether all men were monsters. In addition, the Bothered story arc of the same issue took place in the village, where Belle was made to go outside and play in the village square while Maurice was working on his latest contraption, despite her not wanting to do so. She then arrived at the village square where several kids were playing pirates, and was then dragged off to their "ship" and placed in the "Galley" (actually a cellar), and was trapped inside by a bear (implied to be the Enchantress in disguise) until Maurice saved her by accident while giving a test run with the device. This issue implies that Belle and Maurice had previously lived closer to the village square until moving into the cottage outside of town.
The village also makes a brief appearance in the second issue, where Belle and Maurice were returning from the fair. The panaway shot to the Beast's quarters implied that the village was nearby enough to have the sound travel to the West Wing.
===Beauty and the Beast Marvel Comics===
The village appears in issues 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 as side stories, and in issues 5, 8, 9 and 10 as flashbacks. In the side story bits, the village is often used as the setting for Gaston and LeFou trying to orchestrate plans to get Belle to marry him, and the Bimbettes trying to get him to focus on them rather than Belle. Issue 5 has, with some minor differences, a flashback to the opening of the film.
===Weddings===
The Weddings book shows Belle and the Prince briefly visiting the village as a vacation.
===Disney Princess Royal Weddings===
The Prince and Lumiere visit the village to get supplies in preparation for the then-upcoming wedding, visiting a flower shop to pick out Belle's favorite roses.
==Places of interest==
*Atrium: The public square, which includes a fountain.
*Tavern: Gaston's main hideout.
*Bookstore: A place that sells books that Belle frequently visits. Despite being called such, it's function was closer to a library, as Belle returned a book she had previously read (implied to be Jack and the Beanstalk) to the store due to having finished it, and explicitly mentioned that she borrowed it. Belle was apparently a frequent customer to the store based on her interactions with the bookstore owner. The claim of the store being a library is contradicted, however, by Belle and the bookstore owner freely talking and the latter offering Belle to keep the new book she was receiving, heavily implying that it is a mere bookstore with a library-esque rental policy.
*Boulangerie: A bakery that creates and sells various foods, such as baguettes. According to Belle, it sells various rolls and breads, and apparently may have been among the first things that opened each and every day.
*Barber: Seen on the second floor of a building near the outskirts of the village.
*Al Petit Chapleau: A place that sells wigs and hats, with at least one rotund bald female customer being there.
*Market: Various fish and eggs are sold in the area.
*Plantes & Fleurs: A shop in one of the alleyways of the village. It is presumably a flower shop based on the name (which means "Plants and Flowers" in French) and a flower at the bottom of the sign.
*DeLacroise: A shop in one of the alleyways of the village, to the right of Plantes & Fleurs. It was presumably a poultry shop due to the presence of chicken hanging from the stall.
*Stockades: A place of punishment for more unruly villagers, where their heads and hands were entrapped between a board and are forced to kneel.
*Tobacco shop: A place that sells tobacco. It was marked with a tobacco pipe.
*Larget: A storefront that was presumably a kitchenware shop.
*La Puissance: A storefront.
*La Jamon: An open air market that sold fish. Apparently some of the fish had a chance of going stale based on a villager's complaint.
*A Café.
*A cobber.
*A tool shop.
==Trivia==
*The specific location of the village is never stated outside of it being French, although it may be in Gascony, due to the town hero's name being Gaston, which means "from Gascony." It may also be in or near the Loire Valley, as the production staff for the film used that location as an inspiration for the setting of the film. Woolverton's draft also indicated that the village was located far enough away from Monsieur D'Arque's lunatic asylum (which was stated to be located in Northern France) that it took a few seasons for Gaston and LeFou to get there and back. The weather throughout the film, a large segment of the population being blond/blonde, the mountainous region, as well as some Germanic traits (such as the tavern serving beer as well as the usage of beersteins for both the village and the castle, and the overall architecture of the various houses and buildings being more German in origin) suggests that it was located in the northern-northeastern area of France.
**During the failed wedding scene, the wine at the Bimbettes' table has a white stripe around the bottleneck with a circle in the center, implying that the wine was Alsace Wine and thus the region was either in the Alsace portion of the Lorraine-Alsace region (as it was known back in the 18th century) or right at the Lorraine-Alsace border.Bottles Alsace.jpg It being Alsace or at the border of Alsace and Lorraine is further implied by the animators going to Riquewihr and Ribeauvillé for inspiration for the village.
***On a similar note, the film Enchanted Christmas had Forte mentioning that the Beast, or technically the Prince, often had a huge Christmas tree on Christmas prior to the curse as well as the Beast setting one up, further implying that the castle, and by extension the village was located in the Lorraine-Alsace region (as Christmas trees were a Germanic tradition, and the Alsace-Lorraine region during that time as well as before and afterward often was taken over by France as well as Germany). Further evidence supporting it is the Mob Song implying that the Black Forest was located in close proximity to the village as the namesake was an area of forest located in Germany close to the German-French border.
*Belle's exact status in the town is contradicted in some sources. The opening song has her mentioning that every day in the village was the same since "the morning we [Belle and Maurice] came to this poor, provincial town," implying that she may not have been born at the village, but moved there. The musical further substantiates this claim by mentioning that Belle and Maurice had moved to the town recently at the beginning of the film. However, Belle's statements about the village schedule indicates that she had lived in the village long enough to predict what would occur, and Issue 5 of the Disney Comic Hits! series by Marvel Comics shows Belle, alongside Gaston and the Bimbettes as children during a snowy day, implying that Belle may have moved to the village when she was fairly young, if not born there. In addition, New Fantasyland's Belle's Cottage attraction completely contradicts this with showing that Belle's mother often read to her and had a growth post for each year since her birth, suggesting she had been born at the village.
*The presence of a bishop at the failed wedding in full regalia suggests that the village's primary religion was Catholicism, although Catholic doctrine forbade holding weddings outside a church.
==References==
Category:Towns
Category:Beauty and the Beast locations