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Origin and history

The Salses fortress is an innovative military work built between 1497 and 1503 by the Spanish Catholic kings Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabelle de Castille, on a strategic point between Languedoc and Roussillon. Located on a narrow coastal strip, it locked the passage of the armies, especially for heavy artillery, thanks to its position between the Corbières and the lake of Leucate. Its semi-entered architecture, with walls of 6 to 10 meters thick, met the challenges posed by the artillery with metal balls, marking a transition between medieval castles and bastioned fortifications.

Designed by engineer Francisco Ramiro López and Commander Ramírez, the fortress cost 500 kg of gold (20% of the Castilian budget). As early as 1503 it resisted a French siege where the first registered war mine exploded, causing 600 casualties. Modified after this siege (addition of a masonry slope), it was visited by Charles Quint in 1538 before losing its military advantage against the Italian bastions. During the Thirty Years' War (1639–42), she changed her hands three times before being definitely French in 1642.

After the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), which set the border further south, the fortress lost its strategic role. Vauban partially restored it in 1691, and it served as a prison (poison case under Louis XIV) and then as a powder shop in the 19th century. Ranked a historic monument in 1886, it illustrates a unique synthesis of Spanish, Italian and Burgundy military traditions, with innovations such as countermine galleries, an advanced hydraulic system, and an architecture adapted to cannons.

Its rectangular plan (115 x 90 m) separates a place of arms (boxes, stables for 300 horsepower) from an autonomous small house housing shops, prison and bakery. The 26-metre-high dungeon (Tower of the Tribute) served as the last refuge, with fire chambers and a well. The angle towers (up to 21 m high) and the semi-mooned structures connected by capons reinforced its defence. The fortress combined razing fire, dry ditches (with drainage bezel), and a maze of trapped corridors.

Materials, such as Catalan brick (resistant to pellets) and hard stone, reflect its adaptation to new weapons. Despite defects (dead angles in circular towers, too high escarps), it influenced modern fortifications. Today run by the National Monuments Centre, it also houses contemporary art exhibitions and was immortalized in the comic book Alef-Thau (Jodorowsky/Arno).

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