Citadel of Besançon The Citadel of Besançon in Franche - Comté , France , is one of the military architect Vauban ' s masterpieces . The Citadel occupies eleven hectares on Mount Saint - Etienne , one of the seven hills that protect Besançon , the capital of Franche - Comté . Mount Saint - Etienne occupies the neck of an ox - bow formed by the river Doubs , giving the site a strategic importance that Julius Caesar recognised as early as 58 BC . The Citadel overlooks the old quarter of the city , which is located within the ox - bow , and offers a magnificent view of the entire city and its surroundings . The fortification is well preserved . Today it is an important tourist site ( over a quarter of a million visitors per year ) due both to its own characteristics and because it is the site of several museums . These museums include a museum of the Resistance and deportation , a museum focusing on traditional life in Franche - Comté and the region ' s archeological history , and a museum of natural history that includes a zoo , an insectarium , an aquarium , vivariums , a noctarium , a climatorium , a pedagogical exhibit on evolution , botanical gardens , and a children ' s farm . There is also a restaurant and shops . On July 7 , 2008 , UNESCO listed the Citadel , together with nearby Fort Griffon , as a World Heritage Site . Since 1942 , the French Ministry of Culture has listed the Citadel as a " Monument historique " . History . Construction ( 1668 - 1711 ) . The Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678 gave the region of Franche - Comté to Louis XIV , who decided to improve significantly the city of Besançon ' s defences . In March 1668 Louis appointed the military architect Vauban to design the Citadel . The initial construction , which took place under the supervision of Ambrose Precipiano , took six years . Work continued over thirty years with the result that by 1711 , the Citadel was one of the strongest fortifications of the period . The construction was so expensive that - so the story goes - the king asked Vauban if he was building the walls of gold . Military architecture . The Citadel is built on top of a large syncline on a rectangular field crossed across its width by three successive bastions ( enclosures , or fronts ) behind which extend three plazas . The whole is surrounded by walls covered by circular paths and punctuated by watchtowers and sentry posts . The walls are up to high with a thickness between . Vauban built the first line of defense , the Front St . Etienne , on the site of the eponymous cathedral that he destroyed in order to establish the defences . In front of the curtain is ready a half - moon , surrounded by ditches , equipped to the canon - the flag of entry is extended to both sides of the curtain and completed by half bastions at the ends . The curtain , which was the section of wall between the 2 half bastions , was the weak point of the wall . A rift in the rock , which could be dry or flooded . It was bounded by the escarpment ( lower slope of a ditch ) and Contrescarpe ( masonry wall at the end of ditch ) This divide was crossed by the bridge frame , which was completed by the drawbridge . Then the 2 half bastions laterally protected access to the door . They included : - one side exposed to the enemy army and cannons - which joined the side curtain to the bastions . He could be right ( as in front royal ) or orillons , i . e . sheltered behind a corner covering artillery stationed on the flank . The same system on the front orillons Saint - Etienne . Finally , two ties were arranged on each side of buildings to protect views and firing from the side hills and Chaudanne Bregille . So this system was constructed so that for all positions , we could monitor the enemy wherever he is and he was so identified . Even if there were an enemy to the aplomb of a wall , rather than risking to look to achieve , you could touch from another post . In fact , all the shots and angles of view were studied to better defend the defensive system . Then , to get to Front Royal , there was a large sloping grassy area , which forms the glacis . This allowed glacis , where the Front St . Etienne is crossed , to see the enemy coming and to anticipate any attack . Formerly , he was on naked and without trees . At the extreme left along the cliff , an underpass allowing front of the first defenders to retreat to the front royal . The Front Royal is flanked by two boxes of surveillance : the tower of the king and the tower of the queen . The front and the Front Royal Relief ( at the other end of the Citadel ) was built by the Spanish and edited by Vauban . These fronts are linked by two huge walls , who married almost perfect topography and rock . The walls are made of limestone , and are 5 to 6 m thick and 15 to 20 m high . Vauban intended the walls to screen the Citadel ' s precincts from the view of any enemy occupying the surrounding hills . The upper part of the parapet was built in brick because their chips were much less deadly than the limestone . These walls define the inner courtyard , and were surmounted by a walkway on which you could walk up to the guard . Over ten sentry posts lined the walls , of which only one or two survive . These sentry posts were of limited use in combat as they were fragile . Other buildings . The courtyard contains several buildings . At the centre is a school for cadets , built in 1682 on the orders of Louvois , minister of the Sun King . A court divides the building into two parts . One part was a barracks that housed up to 600 cadets . The other part is the school . In terms of its architecture , the fire is divided over its entire length by a thick wall that put the occupants to escape the shooting side . Built fortified against the wall , away from enemy fire , the powder magazine : building for the conservation of barrels of powder , especially protected and strengthened to prevent the potential of ignition in fire and explosion hazards . It was built under a canopy in the open arch and " the test " ( able to withstand bomb ) . Nails and hinges were bronze to avoid the risk of spark . It came in wooden clogs . The arsenal was responsible for the storage , maintenance and repair of weapons . The ground floor was reserved for the gun and other gear ; the first floor housed the guns , knives , ammunition . In the seventeenth century , a system of pipes brought water to the citadel . However , this was a vulnerability as an enemy could easily destroy the pipe system at the start of a siege . Therefore , in 1692 , Vauban had a well cut to a depth of through the rock to the water table . A wheel with a diameter of four metres , operated by a man who walked within it , served to lift buckets . Unfortunately , the water turned out to be brackish and so undrinkable . Instead , the citadel relied on cisterns that stored rainwater . There was one at the front . The water was still of average quality . The Chapel : The chapels were built by Vauban in each town for the garrison to attend the Sunday . The forms were fairly simple . There were few ornaments , except a few Doric columns . It is dedicated to Saint Stephen , in memory of the church of the same name , which was razed during the construction of the Citadel . The buildings that Vauban undertook not randomly constructed and responded to specific needs . The Citadel in recent times . In the following centuries , successive French governments used the Citadel as a prison or a garrison . The prisoners included the accomplices of the Voisin , accused of poisonings during the reign of Louis XIV , deserters from the armies of Louis XIV and those of Louis XV , and Royalists during the Revolution . During the First Empire the Citadel housed Austrian , French and , Spanish prisoners of war . Still , in the nineteenth century , the Citadel performed its military function when it withstood attacks by the Austrians in 1814 and the Prussians in 1871 , attacks that caused little damage . During the First World War , Besançon was sufficiently far from the front that the fighting left the Citadel untouched . Instead , its primary role was a logistical one . During World War II the Germans captured the Citadel in 1940 . Later , between 28 April 1941 and August 18 , 1944 during the Occupation , German firing squads executed some one hundred resistance fighters . The fighters included eighty Frenchmen , five Spaniards , two Italians , a Luxembourgian , one Swiss and one Pole . The most painful episode occurred on Sunday 26 September 1943 . The sixteen Resistance fighters who died on that day included Henri Fertet , a seventeen - year - old who , like Guy Môquet , wrote a poignant last letter confirming his commitment to the cause . A memorial , in the form of four stakes standing between the well and the chapel of Saint - Etienne , commemorates the " les fusilées " - the men who were shot . After heavy fighting , the Americans captured the Citadel in 1944 and used it to hold German prisoners of war . After the Second World War , the Citadel initially served as a military depot . Current use . In 1958 , the city of Besançon acquired the site from the French government and decided to use the Citadel as a tourist site and the locus for various culture activities . Thus , it now contains several museums , both historical and scientific . The number of visitors is now approaching 300 , 000 per year , making the Citadel the most visited monument in the region of Franche - Comté . The following table shows the attendance figures for recent years . The Museum of the Resistance and Deportation . This museum , which was established in 1971 at the initiative of Denise Lorach , a former deportee , evokes the emotions and depth of this dark page of history . The museum is one of the top five in its class in France and receives an average 65 , 000 visitors per annum . The museum trail is divided into twenty rooms and trafficking , with photographs , texts and original documents , the themes related to World War II : the evolution of Nazism from its inception , the War and the Vichy regime The Deportation and the Resistance inside France ( Franche - Comté , Occupied Zone , Zone Libre - unoccupied - Prohibited Area , Restricted Area , Zone annexed ; whole of Europe ) , the Liberation . . . The choice of the citadel to the museum in France is symbolic because a hundred Resistants were shot during the Occupation . A memorial is dedicated to the outdoors . Two galleries are dedicated concentration in the work of John Daligault , Nacht und Nebel deported / Night and Fog , and that of Delarbre Léon , deported resistant to Auschwitz . The collection presented for all collections of this museum in France , in large part , is a deposit The National Museum of Modern Art . The Resource Centre , accessible by appointment , provides public library , its archives , its bank of images ( including 8000 negative microfilm , slides , tapes ) , the background sounds . . . It funds interest national , made by Abbot Joseph of Martinière and Germaine Tillon records about the Ravensbrück camp with reporting , extracts or copies of studies , books and articles on camp , and various thematic issues such as the Swedish Red Cross or lesbians camp but also on sensitive issues : experience , execution , sabotage , trial . . . on statistical information and data on - train convoys of 8 , 11 , 15 August 1944 , for example . These pieces were collected and lined by file number and registered numbers of all the women deported from France , except deported Jewish - , from various sources : registers nuts prison French and German registries Ravensbrück lists of Department of Veterans Affairs , lists deported by themselves - for example revision . This fund , also result of an investigation launched by region , is supplemented by individual files containing testimonies , correspondence , poems . . . The whole of this fund was deposited in 1995 by the care of Germaine Tillon at the Musée de Besançon striving to continue the work , to bring to the attention of researchers . The Education Department , led by a teacher seconded from Education , is available for teachers to prepare for a visit or student work . it also provides writing materials , in connection with the programs of the classes of cycle 3 to the end , it also offers assistance in the preparation of the National Competition of the resistance and deportation Heritage Identity . A project aimed at changing the presentation in the interpretive centre is now under study .