Arthon is an ancient country whose name derives Arthus, Celtic term for the bear, divine animal among the Celts.
flints and some of polished axes are evidence of human occupation in the Mesolithic and Neolithic.
In Gallo-Roman times an important villa was located at the current rectory. There are still some vestiges of the aqueduct of 3 km which are brought water from the fountain Bonnet.
In the ninth century, after the victory of Erispoe the Retz is Breton. Arthon was then the capital of one of the twenty divisions of the Nantes county. Arthon in 1100 appears in the cartulary of Redon Artum under the term and in the twelfth century and finally Arcon Arton thirteenth.
In the Middle Ages are still traces of a castle and a chapel of the manor of the Sicaudais, cited in 1119. One of the lords of the place, Monsieur de Chevigne receives at his table, in 1587, the king of Navarre, the future Henry IV.
In the mid-nineteenth century, there were only two small villages: Hovel and Janvrais. Tressay miss the Victory The Sicaudais (owner) presents the plan of the future town, as currently constituted and finance the construction of a church and a rectory (now Town Hall in 1989). In this church lie the 20 victims of the 1793 revolution.
During the wars of Vendee, the common, rallied to whites, nearly a hundred victims.
Arthon becomes common Arthon-en-Retz July 9, 1887.
The recent history of this ancient town saw heavy fighting at the end of World War II, when the reduction of the pocket of Saint-Nazaire (August 1944-May 1945).
At the Sicaudais, a monument recalls the names of those who fell fighting to open the German yoke the people trapped in the small Saint-Nazaire.
Chéméré covers 3731 hectares. The Princé forest covers in 650. It was planted by Harscoet Rais in the late seventeenth century. Its wide walkways leading to the Memorial Cross Vendéen, built in memory of the massacres during the Vendée wars. A few steps away stands the menhir of Pierre lift. Not far from the forest remain the ruins of Princé in which successive Lords of Retz including the famous Gilles de Rais also known as Blue Beard. Near the castle, the Enchanted Isles surprise. The garden inspired by Italian art consists of five islands separated by canals and connected by wooden walkways. They have emerged first approaches the third of the seventeenth century and were the work of Henri de Gondi, 2nd Duke of Retz, grand-son of Albert de Gondi.