It is one of the finest masterpieces of military architecture designed by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban.

The Citadel occupies 11 hectares (27 acres) on Mount Saint-Etienne, one of the seven hills that protect Besançon, the capital of Franche-Comté.

Mount Saint-Etienne occupies the neck of an oxbow formed by the river Doubs, giving the site a strategic importance that Julius Caesar recognised as early as 58 BC.

On 7 July 2008, UNESCO listed the Citadel, together with nearby Fort Griffon, as a World Heritage Site for its testimony to Vauban's work and its influence in the design of military fortifications and strategy from the 17th through 20th centuries.

[2] The citadel of Besançon is today the symbol of the city and a high place of tourism in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, the third paying monument in the region in terms of attendance with 200,000 to 300,000 visitors each year.

The Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678, gave the region of Franche-Comté to Louis XIV, who decided to improve significantly the city of Besançon's defences.

Work continued over thirty years with the result that by 1711, the Citadel was one of the strongest fortifications of the period.

The Citadel is built on top of a large syncline on a rectangular field crossed across its width by three successive bastions (enclosures, or fronts) behind which extend three plazas.

As mentioned above, Vauban built the first line of defense, Saint Stephen's Front, on the site of the eponymous cathedral that he destroyed in order to establish the defences.

[citation needed] Then, to get to Royal Front, there was a large sloping grassy area, which forms the glacis.

Vauban intended the walls to screen the Citadel's precincts from the view of any enemy occupying the surrounding hills.

In terms of its architecture, the fire is divided over its entire length by a thick wall that put the occupants to escape the shooting side.

However, this made the citadel vulnerable to siege as an enemy could easily destroy the pipe system.

During the First World War, Besançon was sufficiently far from the front that the fighting left the Citadel untouched.

Later, between 28 April 1941, and 18 August 1944, during the Occupation, German firing squads executed some one hundred resistance fighters.

The sixteen Resistance fighters who died on that day included Henri Fertet, a sixteen-year-old who, like Guy Môquet, wrote a poignant last letter confirming his commitment to the cause.

[3] A memorial, in the form of four stakes standing between the well and the chapel of Saint Stephen, commemorates "les fusillés" – the men who were shot.

After heavy fighting, the Americans captured the Citadel in 1944, and used it to hold German prisoners of war.

The number of visitors is now approaching 300,000 per year, making the Citadel the most visited monument in the region of Franche-Comté.

This museum, which was established in 1971 at the initiative of Denise Lorach, a former deportee, exhibits art, photographs, and documents pertaining to the resistance during World War II and the deportation of citizens.

The museum has twenty rooms, and the location was chosen in part because a hundred resistance members were shot there during the Occupation.

it also provides writing materials, in connection with the programs of the classes of cycle 3 to the end, it also offers assistance in the preparation of the National Competition of the resistance and deportation A project aimed at changing the presentation in the interpretive centre is now under study.