Aigues Mortes - Tour de Constance

The mightiest tower in Aigues Mortes town walls is known as the "Tour de Constance"; its name is said to come from that of a daughter of King Louis VI. It is also sometimes called the "Tower of Steadfastness". Forming the northern corner of the ring of walls, it is separated from them by a moat filled with water and spanned by a bridge. 54m/177ft in height and with walls 6m/20ft thick and measuring 22m/72ft in diameter, it is the epitome of a medieval defensive construction. From the earliest times it served as a State prison, for it was considered impregnable. Among those imprisoned here were, at the beginning of the 14th C., members of the Order of Templars, who had been taken prisoner by Philip IV on the pretext of heresy and immorality