Château et guerre

These beautiful buildings, strong walls, high towers, eerie machicolations, essential battlements, all of this stone-made battle armour, were not of much use: they are like perpetually unsheathed swords. And if by any chance, we learn thanks to texts that one of them suffered an assault during a military expedition, it is possible that the archaeologists cannot find any trace of it. (…) More often than not, as with the famous Château de Bonaguil – very late in the period, I know, but which brought together all the improvements of medieval defences – these fortresses never really were threatened. After all, they probably had reached one of their builder’s goals: dissuasion – displaying strength so as not to use it.