Tour de Constance - Aigues Mortes/France
Posted by: KaPsTeam
N 43° 34.121 E 004° 11.385
31T E 596075 N 4824656
Medival Tower in the city of Aigues Mortes.
Waymark Code: WMMT5G
Location: Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
Date Posted: 11/01/2014
Views: 13
The Tour de Constance is a fortified tower in the southern French city of Aigues-Mortes on the edge of the Camargue. The tower was built from 1242 to 1254 under Louis IX. at the former site of the Tour Matafère, built in turn under Charlemagne in the year 790.
The tower has a diameter of 22 meters and a height to the top of the lantern of 33 meters. The thickness of foundation walls shall be six feet.
The round, two-story tower stands outside the city walls, with which it is connected by a bridge.
The main rooms of the floors, in the basement, this is the room of the guards and the upper floor of the great hall, each of which has a ribbed vault. A round opening in the center of the room the guards allowed access to the basement, here Kerker and ammunition were. About the knight's hall there is access to the roof terrace, which at times served as the starting area for prisoners.
For centuries, the tower served as a prison again and again. In the 14th century the members of the Knights Templar eventually were imprisoned here, from the 17th century, the Huguenots, and in 1815 the officers of Napoleon.
The most famous prisoner was the Huguenot Marie Durand, who was imprisoned here since age 18, for 38 years and was released in 1768. Marie Durand is according to tradition, the still readable word Resister (franz., Dt. Resist, oppose) on the edge of a fountain located in the tower have scratched.
Since 1903, the tower is run as a monument in the List of Monuments historiques.
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