
Built at strategic points and fitted with impressive defenses, fortresses are thought to be impenetrable.

The Siege of La Rochelle (1627-28) climaxes the Protestant Huguenot rebellion against the French crown and leads to the rise of the absolute monarchy.

French forces defend Orleans from an English army during a violent and pitiless siege between 1428 and 1429 during the Hundred Years' War.

English King Richard the Lionheart builds a formidable castle along France's Seine River to assert his supremacy over his rich and strategic lands in Normandy.

A look at the siege of Alesia, a great battle between the Gauls and Romans that brought thousands of soldiers to the plains of France and is a classic example of siege warfare.