Perpignan

The Majorcan court did not outlast the 1340s. In 1344 Peter IV of Aragon invaded Roussillon and joined Perpignan once more to the Principality of Catalonia, and a few years later the Black Death carried off about half its people. From then on the city's place between Catalonia and France made it a prize. Louis XI of France occupied it in 1463, and when the townspeople rose against French rule in 1473 they were put down only after a long siege. Charles VIII handed Perpignan back to Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1493, wanting to win over Castile so that he could invade Italy, but the French returned during the Thirty Years' War, besieging and taking the city in September 1642. In the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659 Spain gave it up for good, and the old mainland capital of the Majorcan kings became a French frontier town.