The long trudge to Fort Libéria

Villefranche-de-Conflent was founded as a medieval garrison town in 1092 to block incursions from Rousillon by rivals of the counts of Cerdagne.

It was remodelled by the military engineer Vauban in the 17th century after the region was annexed by France. and the little town’s streets and fortifications remain largely unchanged from that time.

Vauban was the greatest engineer of his time. His principles of fortification remained in use for nearly 100 years (including in the design of Fort Manoel in my old home base of Malta).

He believed civilian infrastructure should be closely connected to military effectiveness, and so he built Fort Libéria on a hill above Villefranche-de-Conflent in 1681 not long after the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) established the border between France and Spain.

The complex was designed as two nested hexagons, protected on the mountain side by a pointed counterscarp. A triangular donjon faces south towards the village.

Some 100 people and officers occupied the garrison, backed by ten cannons and a magazine that held 12,000 pounds of powder.

The fort also held the occasional prisoner, including two of the women accused in the Affair of the Poisons, a murder scandal in the reign of King Louis XIV that saw several prominent aristocrats convicted of poisoning and witchcraft. They died in a dank cellar below the barracks after being imprisoned in Fort Libéria for decades.

There are only three ways up to the fort: by hired 4×4 taxi, via a hiking path exposed to brutal summer sun, or by trudging up a 734-step underground staircase added to connect fort to village during the age of Napoleon III.

We opted for the latter, which ended up being slightly cooler than the 37C temps outside. The tunnel route also included a pause at the halfway point to inspect a window and battery of five casemates projecting from the rock.

We emerged at the lowest level soaked in sweat and slightly out of breath, but the climb wasn’t difficult compared to the 10-hour hike we’d done the day before.

The first level is occupied by a cafe and chapel, with a men’s prison placed beneath the church, perhaps in a tongue-in-cheek evocation of hell.

After circling the ramparts and examining a tower, we moved to the second and third level where barracks for soldiers and barracks for officers were packed into a squat stone building. 

The loopholes of the ramparts on this highest section look over a counterscarp and moat built to defend the fort from the rocky heights at its back — unsuccessfully, as it turned out.

Fort Libéria was only saw action once, in early August 1793 during the War of the Pyrenees. Spanish troops set up cannons on the rocks behind it, capturing that higher ground and forcing those inside to surrender. The French quickly recaptured and repaired it, but it must have been a disappointing performance for so formidable a structure.

It would finally be abandoned late in the 19th century. 

In 1927 it was sold to a man who attempted to turn it into a retirement home for sailors. No one anticipated that senior citizens wouldn’t want to trudge up all those steps to reach it. 

The fort also housed Nazi prisoners during the Second World War.

Today Fort Libéria is part of the Fortifications of Vauban UNESCO World Heritage Sites.