En un regard
Le château en bref
Brouage, on the Saintonge coast, is a lowland fortified town whose bastioned enceinte survives almost intact. The town was founded in 1555 by Jacques de Pons as a salt-trading port, with no military purpose: it was then protected only by an earth and timber rampart. The Wars of Religion and the sieges of La Rochelle made it a strategic point for controlling the salt of the Charente. Robert de Chinon raised the first bastions there in 1569; Henri III made it a royal town in 1578, with a square plan of seven bastions (four at the corners, three at the midpoints of the north, east and south sides) and a demi-lune. Richelieu became its governor in 1626, and the works of 1628 to 1640, overseen on site by the engineer Pierre de Conti, seigneur d'Argencourt, gave the enceinte a dressed-stone facing and a brick parapet, while the town received barracks, a covered market hall, powder magazines and a royal forge. In 1685, the engineer François Ferry, a collaborator of Vauban, modernised the bastions and the wall-walk. The fortress was decommissioned in 1885. The ramparts have been listed as a monument historique since 1886 and belong to the commune.
