Château de Joux: a castle that served as a prison for revolutionaries

The Fort de Joux, located in La Cluse-et-Mijoux in the Doubs department of France, has been built, rebuilt and modernized over a thousand years. The original structure was built in the 11th century and was made of wood, before the lords of Joux rebuilt the keep and external fortifications out of stone over the next century. In 1454, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, bought the château and transformed it into a border fort, adding a moat and barracks. The château was later renovated by several other rulers, including Charles the Bold and Margaret of Austria, and was most famously modernized by Vauban between 1678 and 1693.

In 1879, Captain Joseph Joffre modernized the château again, transforming it into a fort included in the Maginot Line to prevent German invasion from Swiss territory. For centuries, the site served as a prison for successive French governments between the 17th and 19th centuries. In that capacity, the château is best known for imprisoning famous figures, including Mirabeau, Heinrich von Kleist, and the leader of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture, who died there in 1803.

Today, the château is a monument historique and houses a museum of arms exhibiting more than 600 rare weapons. The castle also contains a well which, at 147 metres (482 ft), was once the deepest in France. Cut with a horizontal gallery and partially filled, it is now the third deepest at about 101 metres (331 ft).

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons