The town walls

The full story

According to the Region’s heritage Inventory, it was Duke Hugh II who, after the fire of 1137 reported by tradition, decided to double the castrum with a new wall. It took in the suburbs that had grown up around the abbeys of Saint-Bénigne and Saint-Étienne, but also wide open spaces, left free to attract new inhabitants. To the north, the Suzon entered the town through a “water gate” guarded by the Tour aux Ânes, mentioned as early as 1314. In the mid-14th century, at the initiative of Queen Joan, a walkway was laid out behind the rampart, and in 1439 Philip the Good strengthened the wall with stones from the old castrum.

The siege of 1513 exposed its weaknesses: on 11 September, a breach opened between the Ouche gate and the Guillaume gate, and only the governor Louis de La Trémouille’s promise of a huge ransom drove the besiegers away. Modernisation began in 1515 with a horseshoe-shaped bulwark in front of the Saint-Pierre gate. In 1536, the suburbs were razed to clear the approaches. The Sienese engineer Girolamo Bellarmato then designed bastions, pointed works projecting in front of the wall: the Guise bastion, begun in 1547 to watch over the Ouche gate, the Saint-Nicolas bastion, completed in 1552, then the Saulx bastion, named after Marshal Gaspard de Saulx.

Under Louis XIII, half-moons, earthworks placed out in front, protected the town’s five gates. But after the conquest of Franche-Comté, the border moved more than 150 kilometres away and Dijon lost its status as a fortified town in 1711. The rampart became a place to stroll: the Cours Fleury, 240 metres long, had three rows of trees, and the Guise bastion was planted in the 18th century.

Demolition began in 1824 with the Saint-Pierre bulwark, replaced by a round square, today’s Place Wilson. The Saint-Nicolas bastion fell in 1847 and gave way in 1855 to another circular square, today’s Place de la République. On 11 November 1865, the town council launched a competition to remove the ramparts and lay out boulevards on their site. Louis XI’s castle, built astride the rampart, was the last to go, in 1897, making way for the main post office.

The Guise bastion, in Rue des Corroyeurs, survived because it serves as a base for the station’s railway tracks; it has been a registered historic monument since 21 December 1944. Stretches of the rampart can still be seen in Rue du Rempart-Tivoli, Rue Berlier and Rue Diderot, with small raised doorways that once led to the promenade. The Porte Guillaume, a triumphal arch completed in 1788, recalls one of the old entrances, and Rue Jeannin, Rue Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, Rue Monge and Rue Berbisey once led to the medieval gates.