Vesoul

Vesoul grew beneath the hilltop castle called Castrum Vesulium, in the county of Burgundy. A centre of commerce and banking in the fourteenth century, it became the seat of the bailliage of Amont in 1333. Its castle and position drew the town into successive wars between France and the rulers of the county.

French forces took Vesoul in 1595, and the castle was destroyed amid the fighting that followed. A petition from the inhabitants that year sought relief from Sunday labour on its demolition and asked for a cross to replace the castle chapel. War, famine and plague brought further hardship in the seventeenth century. French troops took Vesoul again in 1674; the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678 confirmed the county's incorporation into France.