Near Napoléon’s tomb in the Dôme des Invalides, in one of the side niches, is a monument to another remarkable man, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707), a French military engineer and adviser to King Louis XIV. Unlike most military officers in the seventeenth century, Vauban did not belong to Read More …
When you come out of the Toulouse-Matabiau railway station, the first thing you see is the Canal du Midi — unless you just cross the bridge without even noticing it. By today’s standards, the Canal du Midi (Canal of the South) does not look particularly monumental, in fact it looks Read More …
At 3 rue du Taur, just off of Place du Capitole, there is a Gibert Joseph bookshop. This is one of a chain of bookshops that can be found in various French cities, especially near the universities. I have always liked Gibert Joseph because I used to buy my books Read More …
In the center of Bordeaux there is an old fortress called the Fort du Hâ, also known as the Château du Hâ or, as Vauban called it, the “Chasteau du Haa”. This fortress was originally built starting in 1454 at the end of the Hundred Years’ War to keep the city Read More …
On the top floor of one wing of Les Invalides in Paris there is an unusual museum showing twenty-eight large relief-map models that were made starting in the seventeen century, showing fortifications and fortified towns at a scale of 1:600. The earliest of these was made on orders of King Read More …
For 47 years after the Second World War, the French army maintained a large base in Freiburg, three kilometers south of the city center. The French base was called Vauban Barracks (la caserne Vauban) and was named after the French military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707). When the last Read More …
Historically, Lille was known as one of the most often besieged cities in western Europe. It belonged at various times to the County of Flanders, the Kingdom of France, the State of Burgundy, the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Netherlands. After besieging, conquering and occupying Lille in 1667, the Read More …
When I go to art museums I am always glad to see paintings on themes that I ‘know’ because they have also been made into operas. In Nancy I was especially glad to come across a large canvas entitled “The Destruction of the Palace of Armide”, which vividly illustrates a Read More …
In 1679, the great military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre, marquis de Vauban (1633-1707), wrote that the harbor of Toulon was “the most beautiful and the most excellent of the Mediterranean Sea, in the opinion of all nations. It is the principal port of the kingdom and the place where the Read More …
My original intention was to ride around Paris on the Vélib’ bikes during the day and just come out to Versailles for the evening performance at the Royal Opera, but it turned out to be such a rainy day that all my Paris plans ‘fell into the water’, as the Read More …