An inventory of works within the city walls - Besançon

Montmart tower
Pelote tower
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Thirteenth century
Fifteenth and seventeenth centuries
Above the Battant rise
Quai de Strasbourg
Also known as the square tower,
it is at the centre of the Battant bastion.
Probably built in the thirteenth century,
it was part of the medieval porte de
Battant. Vauban included it in the
Battant cavalier and converted into
a powder store. In the nineteenth
century, when the bastion cavalier was
razed to the ground, the tower survived.
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In the twelfth century the town
consisted of two distinct districts:
the ecclesiastical quarter on the slopes
of the hill and the entire loop protected
by the river, as well as the quarter on
the right bank of the Doubs – what
is known now as the quartier Battant
(the Battant district) – closed off by a
defence work. In the thirteenth century,
new ramparts doubled all these lines
of defence and were accompanied by
a wall with about ten access portals.
In the fifteenth century, the emergence of
fire arms necessitated the strengthening
of the fortifications. In 1475, major
works were undertaken near
the porte de Battant, with the
construction of the « tour neuve de la
Pillotte » (the new Pillotte tower) which
may have derived its name from the
Pillot family from whom the land was
purchased.
After the French conquest, Vauban,
commissioned to renovate the town’s
fortifications, kept the Pelote tower
and integrated it into his ramparts. The
Pelote tower was listed as a Historical
Monument in 1942.
Pelote counterguard
Seventeenth century
Quai de Strasbourg
Built between 1677 and 1688, it served
to protect the tower and increase its
firing line by doubling it. This is a
trapezoidal work, the gorge of which is
parallel to the Mouillère gully.