Place Forte de Brouage, Hiers-Brouage, Poitou-Charentes, France
Founded in 1555, by Jacques de Pons, on a deposit of ballast, Brouage had for first vocation the trade of the salt. Rich and prosperous, the city quickly becomes a strategic issue between Protestants and Catholics who dispute it.
Cardinal Richelieu became governor in 1627. He asked Pierre d’Argencourt to fortify the city that will become a stronghold deemed impregnable. From the end of the XVII ° century Brouage begins to decline and Vauban intervenes in 1685 to diminish the importance of the fortifications. Used as a prison city during the Revolution, Brouage falls asleep, forgotten by the sea.
Its notoriety is also due to characters such as Samuel Champlain, born in Brouage around 1570 and founder of the city of Quebec, and Marie Mancini, exiled here in 1659 by his uncle, Cardinal de Mazarin, to keep it away from Louis XIV .
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