page_title: Bastille (Grenoble)
section_title: The Haxo Era
hierarchical_section_title: Bastille (Grenoble) / History / The Haxo Era
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Fortifications de la Bastille vers la place Saint Laurent - Grenoble
context_page_description: The Bastille is the name of a fortress culminating at 476 m above sea level, located at the south end of the Chartreuse mountain range and overlooking the city of Grenoble, France. The Bastille, which also gives its name to the hill, is the main tourist site of the Grenoble area with 600 000 visitors per year.
context_section_description: After the rout of Napoleon in Europe, the treaty of Fontainebleau in 1814 and that of  Paris the following year put Grenoble back on the frontier opposite the Kingdom of Sardinia. Louis XVIII therefore decided in 1815 to reinforce his military presence on the borders. The following year, he charged General Haxo with the task of improving the fortifications of Grenoble that had become outdated and dilapidated.
  After several rough drafts of the plans of the fortress, and much to-ing and fro-ing between Grenoble and the Fortifications Committee in Paris from 1822 to August 1823, the definitive plans for the fort of the Bastille that we can visit today were finally adopted by the committee in its meeting of 29 August 1823.  The first works on the site of the new fortress and its new fortifications began on 16 April 1824. The chief of the battalion of Engineers on site was Commander Tournadre.
  On the slopes which alternated between rocky points, cliffs and scree, the use of contour maps allowed the precise calculation of position and height. The quarries of the Porte de France below supplied most of the stones which were transported up the hill by mule.
  On the western side of the hill above the Porte de France, General Haxo followed the line of the 17th-century walls and turned them into much larger walls flanked by casemates and bastions. At the top was the keep, or the fort, rebuilt after the demolition of the Bastille of Lesdiguières. Preceded by a moat, the fort is a rectilinear building composed of three floors of casemates in dressed stone, built between 1825 and 1830. Immediately adjacent to it, a barracks was built between 1827 and 1838 to lodge 100 men, officers and NCOs. A century later this building became a restaurant. In 1836, a powder magazine was built below the barracks. In spite of the roof having caved in, it is still visible today from the Vauban Viewpoint (the restaurant terrace).
  Still on the western flank, lower down, there is the more modest fort of the Rabot with its citadel, situated within the defensive walls. Built between 1840 and 1847 close to the old Rabot stronghold of the 15th century, some fifty metres above the city, its role was to lodge up to 900 troops and their officers together with their artillery and a powder magazine far from the likely battlefront. Access is controlled by a monumental gate with a drawbridge. Since 1970 this fort has belonged to Grenoble's university and is used as student residences.
  On the eastern flank, the Porte Saint Laurent side of the hill, General Haxo decided on a much more direct route for the walls than the line used by Lesdiguières. Rising above the Porte Saint Laurent are some five terraces of casemates. Then comes the first shorter section of wall linking the Porte Saint Laurent with two floors of mid-level casemates, and a second longer section of wall leads directly from there to the lower casemates of the Bastille. Running alongside each of these two walls is a staircase, with some 80 steps on the lower section and 300 on the upper section. Approximately every ten steps there is a landing, and from there five larger steps lead off at right angles up to the inner side of the wall where there are individual firing positions. With four firing positions between each of the landings this gives 36 positions on the lower section and 120 positions on the upper section.
  Finally, to facilitate access and communications from one side of the fort to the other, a curtain wall was built on the upper third of the hill. Some 500 metres long and more or less horizontal, it links the two sides, with bastions along the way.
  At the same time that these construction works were beginning on the hill above the right bank of the Isère, the then new mayor of Grenoble, Jean-François Pina, informed the minister of war of his desire to enlarge the city walls on the left bank of the river where the larger part of the city lay. Tournadre, the head of the Engineers on site, opposed the plan because his allocated budget for the work on the hill could not be stretched to cover the en
caption: Ramparts close to the Porte Saint Laurent
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Digital StillCamera", "Image Make": "My Digital", "Image Model": "S 4200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver 1.14", "Image DateTime": "2004:01:24 04:47:34", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "266", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1036", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "19962", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/220", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:01:24 04:47:34", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:01:24 04:47:34", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "389/50", "EXIF ApertureValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "3/10", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "31/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "EXIF RelatedSoundFile": "", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "890", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "32", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Hard", "EXIF Saturation": "Hard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}