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Visited the ancient city which was founded in 100 AD. Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) rebuilt the port in the 13th century as France's only Mediterranean port at that time. It was the embarkation point of theSeventh Crusade (1248) and the Eighth Crusade (1270). (links to wikipedia) |
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| City center, with statue of Saint Louis, king of France who launched the 7th and 8th crusades. |
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| The town isn't actually on the mediterranean, so canals were built for access to the sea. |
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| The 1,650 meters of city walls were built in two phases: the first during the reign of Philippe III the Bold and the second during the reign of Philippe IV the Fair, who had the enclosure completed between 1289 and 1300. The Constance Tower, completed in 1248, is all that remains of the castle built in Louis IX's reign. It was designed to be impregnable with six-meter-thick walls. A spiral staircase leads to the different levels of the tower. |
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| From 1575 to 1622, Aigues-Mortes was one of the eight safe havens granted to the Protestants. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 caused severe repression of Protestantism, which was marked in Languedoc and the Cévennes in the early 18th century by the "Camisard War". Like other towers in the town, from 1686 onwards, the Constance Tower was used as a prison for the Huguenots who refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. In 1703, Abraham Mazel, leader of the Camisards, managed to escape with sixteen companions. |
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| My protestant grandfather from Northern Ireland had French Huguenots roots. The family name had been "Roche" until his grandfather , who fought in the Napoleonic wars and was wounded at the battle of Waterloo, changed it to Rock. The family history does not go back any further than this great, great, grandfather. I have no idea where the family was from in France, so it might have been here. |
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