Fort de La Prée, built in 1625, is located near the eastern end of the Île de Ré. It was built by Royalist Army after they conquered the are from Huguenots during the Wars of Religion. They used materials salvaged from the remains of the Romanesque abbey of the Châteliers'.
The Duke of Buckingham ignored Fort de La Prée during his three-month siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré in 1627. This neglect turned out to be a strategic error. Toiras managed to land troops there, and from there force the English to give up their siege and withdraw in defeat.
The fort subsequently underwent modifications under the oversight of several engineers: François Blondel (1664), Louis-Nicolas de Clerville (1672), Le Favolière, and finally Sainte-Colombe (1676). They added the gate, a barracks for 200 soldiers outside the walls, and some other outside works.
In 1685, Vauban, the preeminent engineer of the time, had François Ferr raze parts of the original fort, particularly the keep and the outworks that enclosed the entire fort.
The fort was later abandoned before being re-established in 1793. During the latter part of the 19th century, the external barracks were demolished. In 1875, the fort's covered way had sheltered passages added. The fort was decommissioned circa 1900.
During World War II the Germans occupied the fort. They added some blockhouses in the ramparts and on the seafront. From 1948, the fort became the administrative block for a development of vacations homes, but was closed in 1977.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).