The Vauban citadel, overlooking Seyne, bears witness to the history of the valley since the 17th century. Already equipped with medieval fortifications, the city which then bordered Savoy was deemed insufficiently protected by Vauban, the great engineer and military architect of Louis XIV.
In 1691, Vauban erected a citadel which followed the crest of a rocky spur and thus dominated the ramparts and bastions which had been reinforced. Narrow and elongated in shape, the citadel is in fact adapted to the particular relief of the land and includes a 12th century tower inherited from military works from the Middle Ages. Protecting the small city located at its feet, the citadel, remodeled in the 18th century, lost its strategic interest in the following century and, threatening ruin, ended up being bought by the city during the 20th century.
You will discover genuine cannons, the impressive period cistern with its stalactites, the old bread oven, films, and exhibitions on the history of Seyne and its fortress.
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).