Photo : Benjamin Smith / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Remparts d'Aigues Mortes
On the marshy expanse of the Camargue stands out the fortified enclosure of Aigues-Mortes, built ex nihilo in the thirteenth century by Saint Louis to give the kingdom of France a port on the Mediterranean. The Tour de Constance, one of the most majestic keeps of medieval architecture, and the 1,634 metres of ramparts flanked by 20 towers were completed in less than 50 years. After a period of splendour, the town subsisted with difficulty, keeping intact, to this day, a large part of its medieval environment. The Tour de Constance became sadly famous for having served as a prison for Cévennes Protestant women from 1685. This use had begun as early as 1307 with the Templars and was interrupted only in 1768.
