TO ERR IS A MAVEN'S RIGHT

Several days ago I posted an article about a French city which I identified as " Porte-Sainte- Louise-Du-Rhone" That city is a somewhat more modern French port at the mouth of the present Rhone River.

The photos are of Aigues Mortes

The foundation of the city is attributed to Marius Caius, around 102 BC, but the first document mentioning a place called " ayga mortas dates from 10th cedntury. Louis IX (Saint Louis) rebuiltit in the 13th century as France's only Mediterranean port.A that tim was="" embarkation point of seventh and the eighth crusades.

The town is actually several miles inland and the port, as such, would have been in nearby lagoons and estuaries, linked to Aigues-Mortes. The 1,650 metres of city walls were built in two phases: the first during the reign of Philippe III the Bold and the second during the reign of Philippe IV the Fair, who had the enclosure completed between 1289 and 1300.

The Constance Tower, completed in 1248, (Two views below)is all that remains of the castle built in Louis IX's reign. It was almost certainly the gatehouse tower, designed to be impregnable with its six-metre-thick walls. A spiral staircase leads to the different levels of the tower. From 1575 to 1622, Aigues-Mortes was one of the eight safe havens granted to the Protestants. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 caused severe repression of Protestantism, which was marked in Languedoc and the Cévennes in the early 18th century by the "Camisard War". Like other towers in the town, from 1686 onwards the Constance Tower was used as a prison for the Huguenots who refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. In 1703, Abraham Mazel, leader of the Camisards, managed to escape with sixteen companions.

As an apology here are three more pictures.