Old Gate (Speyer)

Today it is one of the largest (55 metres or 180 feet tall) and most architecturally significant of the remaining city gates in Germany.

French troops had placed explosives in the tower and were preparing to demolish it when the Prior of the nearby Carmelite monastery warned Marshal Duras that the tower's collapse might endanger the monastery and Duras' headquarters, which had been established nearby.

When Duras responded that his soldiers knew how to demolish the building without danger, the entire Carmelite community knelt in front of the French troops with their burning firebrands, to plead for the tower to be spared.

[citation needed] While the Old Gate was spared, the city of Speyer and the cathedral were left in a heap of rubble.

The old gate was constructed to mark the end of a "Via Triumphalis" that led from the cathedral to the city walls.