A fortress built by the Spanish in the Pyrenees-Orientales.

This fortress was built by Spain from 1497 to 1504, on order of Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Aragon, to bar access from Roussillon to France.
With walls almost 10 metres thick, it is a masterpiece of military architecture, a real specimen of transition between the medieval castle, from which the dungeon and the cylindrical towers remain which surround the long curtain walls, and the modern fortress, strictly geometrical and sunk into the ground.

Occupying a strategic position, it was finally overcome by the French in 1642.  The Treaty of the Pyrenees, in 1659, confirmed its belonging to France definitely.