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Origin and history

The fortifications of Marsal, located in the Moselle department in the Greater East region, were built in the 3rd quarter of the 17th century under the impulse of Louis XIV and Vauban. They replace a medieval enclosure erected in the 13th century by Bishop Jacques de Lorraine, which was modernized at the beginning of the 17th century by the Dukes of Lorraine. Marsal, located in an alluvial plain surrounded by the Seille, owes its historical richness to the exploitation of salt since the Iron Age, as evidenced by the Gallic and Roman brickwork still visible.

The city, strategic for its salt and its position on the Roman road Metz-Strasbourg, is long disputed between the Duchy of Lorraine and the bishopric of Metz. In the 17th century, Vauban applied the bastioned system to Italian: seven bastions held the city after 1663, the date of its capture by Louis XIV. The gate of France, a vestige classified in 1928, and the royal barracks (1666) illustrate this period. The fortifications, partially dismantled in the 19th century, lost their defensive role after Lorraine joined France in 1766.

Marsal retains traces of its military and industrial past: the departmental salt museum (located in the gate of France) traces the history of "white gold", while the bricks of the Seille, classified in 1930, bear witness to the ancient techniques of extraction. The Collège Saint-Léger (XIIth–XIVth centuries) and the remains of the ramparts also recall its religious and strategic importance. After the wars of 1870 and 1914-1918, the town, marked by Franco-German conflicts, saw its fortifications partially destroyed by the Germans.

The archeological site of the brickwork, the Roman road discovered in 1972, and the barracks of Vauban (classified in 1990) complete this heritage. Marsal, now a rural commune of Lorraine Regional Natural Park, thus perpetuates a military, artisanal and religious memory, linked to its salty soil and its historical border position.

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