How a city that was robbed 18 times in a row came up with a means of defense against attacks (7 photos)

There is one small town in France called Fougères, it is located 300 kilometers from the glorious city of Paris. Which, by average Russian standards, is approximately the same as Nizhneye Gadyukino from Moscow. Yes, and it can be called a city with a very big stretch, it’s actually very big.





City of Fougères. Alas, the photo is not by the author. The author was not there. And most likely never will

The locals are great patriots of their city with a population of as many as 17 thousand people!

Again, by our standards, this is a strong village or Kuban village. Over there, near Krasnodar, almost 40 thousand people live in Dinskaya.

But we digress...

The town of Fougères was founded at the very end of the Roman Empire, when the Romans were still strong, but not strong enough to fight off the advancing barbarians once and for all. By the will of fate, Fougères, built on the very border, constantly received lyuli. First, the barbarians will come and plunder everything, then the Romans will come, drive out the robbers and collect taxes. It is not yet known who had it worse.

When Rome weakened and collapsed, the town was completely occupied by the barbarian tribes of the Franks. It seems like there is calm...

No matter how it is!

The distribution of lyuli on a citywide scale continued for more than a thousand years, first due to civil strife, then the British became involved in this process. And so it all finished off the local residents that they decided to build a fortress. First made of wood. Naive she stood... she didn’t stand at all. The poor fellow was burned during the first raid.

Then they built earthen fortifications... also to no avail. After which, apparently armed with the experience of Tamerlane, who took stones and talked with them, the Fougeres began to collect stones and surrounded the city with fortress walls.

Alas... it didn’t work out either - there were too few of them to protect the entire city. Then they resorted to cunning and built a small fortress, but with very high and thick walls, behind which... there was nothing.

Literally!



The fortress was so small that it contained a tunnel carved into the rock to the water and one stone building in which food was stored. The whole city was open to robbers. As soon as an unhealthy commotion began, local residents ran as fast as they could to the fortress, taking with them the most valuable things - themselves and some money.

They locked the gates and waited until the uninvited guests scooped up everything that was in the city and went home.

Do you think this was the trick after which the city was left alone?

That's right, it wasn't!

It didn't work!

For every cunning person, there is an even more cunning one or a complete fool who acts in a way that is not expected of him.

The English King Henry No. 2 approached the city and thought:

- Since the inhabitants so easily left the city to be plundered, it means... that means... they have the most valuable things hidden in the fortress!

Naturally, the fortress was taken by storm. And when it turned out that the residents had nothing, the king asked the question:

-Are you sick? Why did they build it then?

Quite a few people were killed in retaliation. The population decreased by almost 15 times. And, yes, since then they no longer hid in the fortress... well, almost.





The last time the city drank to the full was during the Revolution. The Fougeres did not support the revolutionary zeal, did not want to “rock the boat” and stood up to defend the authorities. The revolutionaries gathered an army of proletarians and they, turning on the punishment mode, went to plunder the rebellious city.

Over the course of 3 years of struggle, it changed hands 18 times!

I don’t know about them, but the third time I would get tired, give up and move somewhere calmer.

And here it is 18 times!

Just some kind of convention of masochists.



Wine glasses that are not wine glasses at all. Photo by the author

If this continued, then there would be absolutely nothing left of the city!

But a miracle helped him!

Yes, it was in the vicinity of Fougères that countless reserves of fern were found, from which the most important resource of that time was made: potash. Potash is an integral part of gunpowder, and whoever owned the production of gunpowder owned Europe.

However, the unlucky city of Fougeres was lucky twice!

The fact is that potash is very important for the production of another thing - glass. And in the vicinity of Fougères, deposits of especially pure sand were discovered, in which iron oxide was almost completely absent, i.e.oh there is rust.

The fact is that almost all European sand contains quite a lot of iron oxide, which leads to the fact that during glass production it turns out slightly greenish.



A wine glass, which is a wine glass. Photo by the author

The city of Fougeres was lucky with sand - it stood on a unique sand deposit that was not available anywhere else in all of Europe. From this sand, glass turned out to be perfectly transparent even without the addition of lead, that is, there was no need to make crystal from glass.

Clean glass was obtained immediately, right in the oven!

The residents of Fougeres quickly realized that this was the second time that collectors were driving along their street. In the town, like mushrooms after rain, glassblowing workshops began to appear, which were engaged in melting perfectly transparent glass.

And in order for their glassware to differ from all other glassblowing industries not only in cleanliness, but also in shape, they specially stretched upward and narrowed wine glasses, which they began to call in honor of their city - wine glasses.



- How could this help the city from constant wars and looting? - the attentive reader will ask.

It really helped!

It’s just that when there was nothing in the city, he was not taken into account, he was torn to pieces. When powerful glassblowing production appeared, which was unique on the scale of Europe, each conqueror first of all thought:

- You need such a cow yourself!

And they avoided the city so that, God forbid, they would not hit the glass furnaces constantly smoking throughout the entire area. They took care of the city like the apple of their eye, you must agree, why lose the goose that can lay golden eggs.



Since then, all European wars have passed by the town of Fougere, with the exception of... World War II. The fact is that the city entered the Second World War as a large industrial center, with many industries that Germany began to use to its fullest after it swept aside France in 40 days and occupied most of its territory.

When the Allies began to recapture the captured territories from the Germans, Fougere got it right from the heart, almost like Dresden. The bombing demolished all more or less operating factories and workshops. This was the end; all that was left of the glorious history of fougere glass was the name.

So what is a wine glass and how is it different from a glass?

Ideally, the glass is an ordinary glass made of ordinary glass or crystal. A wine glass is a narrowed glass for sparkling wine, which is made of clear glass, but not crystal. However, today everything is mixed, wine glasses are made from both crystal and low-quality glass (for example, Turkey, China, Vietnam).

Only one thing remains unchanged: a narrowed shape, which allows you to drink champagne more effectively and feel millions of magical bubbles.