Montreuil

Montreuil stands on a rocky height above the Canche estuary. In the Middle Ages its harbour offered the French royal domain an opening to the sea; before 1204 it was the royal domain’s only port, and the town was protected by walls and a royal castle. Its position near the English and Habsburg frontiers later made its defences especially valuable.

The army of Charles V ravaged Montreuil in 1537. Francis I strengthened the town with bastioned walls, which helped it resist an Anglo-imperial attack in 1544. Later, Charles IX ordered a new star-shaped citadel built around part of the old medieval royal castle itself. Its five irregular bastions were carefully fitted to the shape of the ground; Vauban reinforced the site again around 1670.