An inventory of works within the city walls - Besançon

Charmont demi-lune
Built between 1677 and 1679,
it was restored in the nineteenth and
the twentieth centuries at the time of
the road improvements. It protected
the porte de Charmont which was
destroyed in 1894 and gave access
to the town.
Fort Griffon
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Seventeenth and nineteenth centuries
Seventeenth and nineteenth centuries
Avenue de la Paix
Place Griffon
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The current fort was built as from 1680
on Vauban’s plans. It succeeded a first
bastion which might have been built
in 1595 by Italian engineer Jean
Griffoni, when the troops of the king
of France Henry IV were threatening
to lay siege to Besançon. This fort,
the town’s bridgehead, which occupied
a prime location, might be considered
a second citadel. It served the function
of a redoubt holding a key position
on the right bank and its design enabled
firing both out into the countryside in
the event of attack, and over the city in
the event of an uprising « It alone, with
a garrison of just 200 men would better
contain the population than 1200
accommodated in ordinary barracks. »
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wrote Vauban. With three bastions
one with a cavalier. It had an entrance
gate which, up to the beginning of the
twentieth century, was protected by a
ditch, now filled in, and equipped with
a drawbridge. The courtyard in which
the chapel was built is surrounded
by three ranges of buildings. Two of
them are barracks built in accordance
with the modular barracks prototype,
Vauban style, the second included
the guardhouse as well as the fort
commander’s accommodation.
Designed to accommodate the
troops, Fort Griffon was used by the
military until 1945 then from 1946
it was used as a school. It is now
one of the buildings of the Teacher
Training University Institute of
Franche-Comté. Fort Griffon was listed
as a historical monument in 1944.
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