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Fort Libéria
Fort Libéria is a former military installation in the French commune of Villefranche-de-Conflent in the department of the Pyrénées-Orientales, at the confluence of the rivers Têt, Rotjà, and Cady. Constructed to defend the newly acquired territory of the Roussillon following the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), it was designed by Louis XIV's military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban on a hill above the village of Villefranche-de-Conflent. The fort was occupied by a garrison of 100 people and their officers, and equipped with ten cannons. It was only attacked once, and lost its military function in the 19th century. It also functioned as a prison: two of the women accused in the Affair of the Poisons were locked up in the fort in 1682 by order of Louis XIV, and died there after being imprisoned for decades. By 1927 the fort was sold, and for a while served as a retirement home for sailors. In 1984 it was sold to a group of local businessmen, and as of 1987, it is ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Villefranche-de-Conflent
Villefranche-de-Conflent (; ca, Vilafranca de Conflent) is historically a town in the Conflent region of Catalonia, and now a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. Geography Villefranche-de-Conflent is located in the canton of Les Pyrénées catalanes and in the arrondissement of Prades. The town's confined site, at about 440 m above sea level, is relatively level ground surrounded by * the northeast-flowing river Têt (on the town's west and north), * the Cady, which flows north to empty into the Têt (on the east), and * a peak (at nearly 800 m), less than 800 m away (on the south). Transport ;Roads The N116 from Perpignan on the Mediterranean passes, as a two-lane highway, between the southern town wall and an embankment cut into the high ground to the south; this route continues west into the adjacent Cerdagne region. ;Train The town's train station starts and ends the route of the scenic Yellow train. History The town's access ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collioure
Collioure (; ca, Cotlliure, ) is a commune in the southern French department of Pyrénées-Orientales. Geography The town of Collioure is on the Côte Vermeille (Vermilion Coast), in the canton of La Côte Vermeille and in the arrondissement of Céret. Toponymy Collioure is named ''Cotlliure'' in Catalan. History There is a record of the castle at "Castrum Caucoliberi" having been mentioned as early as 673, indicating that the settlement here was of strategic and commercial importance during the Visigoth ascendancy. Collioure used to be divided into two villages separated by the river Douy, the old town to the south named ''Port d'Avall'' (in French known as ''Le Faubourg'') and the upstream port, ''Port d'Amunt'' (in French known as ''Le Mouré''). Collioure was taken in 1642 by the French troops of Maréchal de la Meilleraye. A decade later, the town was officially surrendered to France by the 1659 Treaty of Pyrenees. Because of its highly strategic importance, the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, while phrases like ''liberté, égalité, fraternité'' reappeared in other revolts, such as the 1917 Russian Revolution, and inspired campaigns for the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage. The values and institutions it created dominate French politics to this day. Its causes are generally agreed to be a combination of social, political and economic factors, which the ''Ancien Régime'' proved unable to manage. In May 1789, widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates General, which was converted into a National Assembly in June. Continuing unrest culminated in the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July, which led to a series of radical measures by the Assembly, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Of The Pyrenees
The War of the Pyrenees, also known as War of Roussillon or War of the Convention, was the Pyrenean front of the First Coalition's war against the First French Republic. It pitted Revolutionary France against the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal from March 1793 to July 1795 during the French Revolutionary Wars. The war was fought in the eastern and western Pyrenees, at the French port of Toulon, and at sea. In 1793, a Spanish army invaded Roussillon in the eastern Pyrenees and maintained itself on French soil through April 1794. The French army drove the Spanish army back into Catalonia and inflicted a serious defeat in November 1794. After February 1795, the war in the eastern Pyrenees became a stalemate. In the western Pyrenees, the French began to win in 1794. By 1795, the French army controlled a portion of northeast Spain. The war was brutal in at least two ways. The Committee of Public Safety decreed that all French royalist prisoners be executed. Also, French generals w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long Tunnel Down To Villefranche
Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mensural notation Places Asia * Long District, Laos * Long District, Phrae, Thailand * Longjiang (other) or River Long (lit. "dragon river"), one of several rivers in China * Yangtze River or Changjiang (lit. "Long River"), China Elsewhere * Long, Somme, France * Long, Washington, United States People * Long (surname) * Long (surname 龍) (Chinese surname) Fictional characters * Long (''Bloody Roar''), in the video game series Sports * Long, a fielding term in cricket * Long, in tennis and similar games, beyond the service line during a serve and beyond the baseline during play Other uses * , a U.S. Navy ship name * Long (finance), a position in finance, especially stock markets * Lòng, name for a laneway in Shanghai * Long int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magazine (artillery)
Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition or other explosive material is stored. It is taken originally from the Arabic word "makhāzin" (مخازن), meaning 'storehouses', via Italian and Middle French. The term is also used for a place where large quantities of ammunition are stored for later distribution, or an ammunition dump. This usage is less common. Field magazines In the early history of tube artillery drawn by horses (and later by mechanized vehicles), ammunition was carried in separate unarmored wagons or vehicles. These soft-skinned vehicles were extremely vulnerable to enemy fire and to explosions caused by a weapons malfunction. Therefore, as part of setting up an artillery battery, a designated place would be used to shelter the ready ammunition. In the case of batteries of towed artillery the temporary magazine would be placed, if possible, in a pit, or natural declivity, or surrounded by sandbags or earthworks. Circumstances might ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Napoléon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew of Napoleon I, he was the last monarch to rule over France. Elected to the presidency of the Second Republic in 1848, he seized power by force in 1851, when he could not constitutionally be reelected; he later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French. He founded the Second Empire, reigning until the defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies at the Battle of Sedan in 1870. Napoleon III was a popular monarch who oversaw the modernization of the French economy and filled Paris with new boulevards and parks. He expanded the French overseas empire, made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, and engaged in the Second Italian War of Independence as well as the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, dur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew of Napoleon I, he was the last monarch to rule over France. Elected to the presidency of the Second Republic in 1848, he seized power by force in 1851, when he could not constitutionally be reelected; he later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French. He founded the Second Empire, reigning until the defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies at the Battle of Sedan in 1870. Napoleon III was a popular monarch who oversaw the modernization of the French economy and filled Paris with new boulevards and parks. He expanded the French overseas empire, made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, and engaged in the Second Italian War of Independence as well as the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, dur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donjon
A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residences, used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the castle fall to an adversary. The first keeps were made of timber and formed a key part of the motte-and-bailey castles that emerged in Normandy and Anjou during the 10th century; the design spread to England, south Italy and Sicily. As a result of the Norman invasion of 1066, use spread into Wales during the second half of the 11th century and into Ireland in the 1170s. The Anglo-Normans and French rulers began to build stone keeps during the 10th and 11th centuries; these included Norman keeps, with a square or rectangular design, and circular shell keeps. Stone keeps carried considerable political as well as military importance and could take up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterscarp
A scarp and a counterscarp are the inner and outer sides, respectively, of a ditch or moat used in fortifications. Attackers (if they have not bridged the ditch) must descend the counterscarp and ascend the scarp. In permanent fortifications the scarp and counterscarp may be encased in stone. In less permanent fortifications, the counterscarp may be lined with paling fence set at an angle so as to give no cover to the attackers but to make advancing and retreating more difficult. If an attacker succeeds in breaching a wall a coupure can be dug on the inside of the wall to hinder the forlorn hope, in which case the side of the ditch farthest from the breached wall and closest to the centre of the fortification is also called the counterscarp. Counterscarp gallery These are tunnels or "galleries" that have been built behind the counterscarp wall inside the moat or ditch. Each gallery is pierced with loopholes for musketry, so that attacking forces that enter the moat can be dire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Segre (river)
The Segre ( or ; french: Sègre) is a river tributary to the Ebro (''Ebre'' in Catalan) with a basin comprising territories across three states: France, Andorra and Spain. The river Segre, known to Romans and Greeks as Sicoris, and to the Arabs of Al-Andalus as Nahr az-Zaytūn (نهر الزيتون, river of Olives) has its sources on the north face of the Pic del Segre or ''Puigmal de Segre'' ("Segre's Peak") in the French department Pyrénées-Orientales (historically the ''comarca'' of Alta Cerdanya), in the Catalan Pyrenees. It follows a western direction all along the Cerdanya (''Cerdagne'') Valley, and crosses the town Saillagouse, the Spanish exclave Llívia and Bourg-Madame. It enters Spain at Puigcerdà and continues west until La Seu d'Urgell, where it meets the Valira River coming from Andorra. From this point it adopts a south-western course across the pre-Pyrenees (with several dams along its gorges) and the western plains of Catalonia. It passes through Balaguer, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort De Bellegarde
The ''Fort de Bellegarde'' (''Fort'' or ''Castell de Bellaguarda / Bellaguàrdia'' in Catalan) is a 17th-century bastion fortification located above the town of ''Le Perthus'', in the Pyrénées-Orientales ''département'' of southern France. History Le Perthus became French territory after the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659). Bellegarde was captured by the Spaniards in 1674, but retaken by Schomberg in 1675. In 1678, Vauban's plans for the new fortress of Bellegarde were approved. During the War of the Pyrenees, the fortress was besieged in May - June 1793 by the Spanish and then by the French (May - Sept. 1794). During World War II, the fort was used as a holding prison by the ''Gestapo'' for escaped prisoners of war and enemy agents. In popular culture In 1974, scenes from the Charles Bronson film '' Breakout'' were filmed at the Fort. The filmmakers were portraying an actual helicopter prison escape similar to one that occurred in Mexico in 1971. Tourism The for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
