Fort Napoleon

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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Fort Napoleon, located on the island of Terre-de-Haut in the archipelago of Saintes (Guadeloupe), is a fortification built in the 19th century on the ruins of an ancient fort named "Fort Louis" (1773), renamed in 1805 before its destruction by the English. Totally rebuilt between 1844 and 1867 under Napoleon III, it adopts an octagonal plan with 8 bastions and walls of 10 meters high, conceived as a modern bastioned fortress. Although he had never served militarily in wartime, he would be home to a camp internment during the Second World War under the Vichy regime, especially for French men of Italian and Lebanese origin, including the resistant Paul Valentino, who escaped.

The fort is built on the Morne Mire, 119 meters above sea level, in local stone, with a three-storey central barracks that can accommodate 220 men. Its architecture includes a rainwater recovery system, artillery shelter crossings, and a drawbridge still in place. After decades of abandonment, it was restored from the 1970s by local associations, then transformed into a museum dedicated to the history of the saints and a botanical garden specializing in fatty plants, also home to iguanas. Ranked a historic monument in 1997, in 2021 it receives funding of €600,000 for its restoration under the "France Relance" plan.

The history of the fort is part of the French-English rivalries in the West Indies: taken by the English in 1759 and returned to France in 1763, the archipelago saw several defensive works, including Fort Josephine on the island in Cabrit. The naval battle of the Saintes (1782), between French and English, also marked its historical context. After World War II, the fort briefly welcomed a holiday settlement before being left behind until its cultural and tourist rehabilitation. Today, he offers models of the Battle of 1782, exhibits on colonization, and reconstructions of ancient navigation techniques.

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