Fort Saint-Nicolas

Fort Saint-Nicolas is a former military fort in Marseille. It's the sister fort to Fort Saint-Jean which was constructed at the same time.

After an uprisings in 1630–31 and the Fronde in 1648–1652, the young King Louis XIV had two large forts, fort St. Jean and Fort St. Nicholas, built at the harbour entrance to control the city's unruly population. It was constructed at the same time as Fort Saint-Jean on the opposite side of the harbour. Commenting on their construction, Louis XIV said, "We noticed that the inhabitants of Marseille were extremely fond of nice fortresses. We wanted to have our own at the entrance to this great port." In fact, the two new forts had cannons pointed inwards towards the town, not outwards towards the sea.

It was besieged On 30 April 1790, and many of the soldiers inside were massacred.

Text adapted from “Fort Saint-Nicolas (Marseille)” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fort Saint-Nicolas ranks #2,414 of 5,479 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #182 of the 351 mapped in France. Founded 1660, it is older than 29% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 350 atlas entries founded in the 17th century. See how France compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗