Brouage Fortress July 30

My friend Anne did some research on this fortress so I edited it and am sending it on to you.  For all you history buffs:

Our next door neighbors here in France, Bernard and Beatrice, took Anne and I to the citadel city of Brouage. The town is completely surrounded by a tall wall that is square and 400 meters long on each side. There are 19 towers.  We strolled across almost their entire length on the grassy wall.  It is quite high, about three to four stories.  

 

The town has a French Canadian connection, French navigator Samuel de Champlain who lived there when young. He wa also the co-founder of French settlement in Acadia (1604–1607) and Quebec. In the memory of Champlain, Brouage still holds many ties with the Canadian province of Quebec. There are several little shops that sell French-Canadian goods like maple syrup, cranberry juice, iced wine and Canadian whisky.  The stained glass windows in the town’s church was a gift from the provincial government of Quebec.

Brouage was founded in 1555 and fortified between 1630 and 1640 by Cardinal Richelieu, governor, as a Catholic bastion in order to fight against the neighboring Protestant town of La Rochelle during the Wars of Religion. It originally faced the Atlantic Ocean but the port gradually silted up and now sits three kilometers from the ocean.  Historically it was an important regional center with wealth based around the salt industry (like much of this region) but once the harbor became unreachable due to the silt, it became useless as a port and fell into ruin. 

A long period of decline followed for the town, which only changed with the advent of tourism in the late 20th century. The ramparts and associated buildings were renovated and it is these that now attract most visitors to Brouage. The town, fortifications and surrounding salt marshes are now one of only about 30 sites in France to be officially classified as a 'Grand Site' of France.  As many as 4000 lived in Brouage and today it is home to only 150.  It is also a center for artisans who now sell their goods in renovated horse stalls that used to house the military horses.

One thing that I found most interesting was the “glacier”. These people were pretty ingenious figuring out a way to have refrigeration and make ice cream! They built a very deep storage area in the ground and then had ice shipped in from glaciers. When the ice arrived the ice was first cut and then wrapped in straw to better conserve the cold. It was then moved into the hole in the ground. A building on top had an entrance for access. They left space for the ice to melt and were able to have “refrigeration” without any electricity. Pretty clever.