Plan de la ville de Roses

Plan of the siege of Roses during the Reapers’ War, between 2 April and 29 May 1645. In 1644, the French army controlled a large part of Catalonia, but the governor of Roses, Diego Caballero, organised a fierce resistance. On 2 April 1645, Marshal the Count du Plessis-Praslin established a siege of the city, defended by only 1,300 men against 8,000 Frenchmen. At the end of May 1645, the French managed to penetrate the city and take control of part of the defences, forcing the governor of the city to surrender. The conquest of Roses freed the Franco-Catalan zone from the Castilian forces and stabilised the front line for a long time. This military victory would allow the Kingdom of France to negotiate from a position of strength with Spain: with the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), which would end the conflict, the French obtained the annexation of the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya. However, they failed in the annexation of the stronghold of Roses. During the 14 years of French occupation, important reforms were carried out in the defences of the citadel of Roses, directed by the engineer d’Agencourt, and the population was displaced outside the walls. The engraving represents the Gulf of Roses, the defensive scheme of the city and its surroundings, and the positions of the besieging French troops. In the foreground a group of musketeers is represented, chatting calmly in the midst of battle. In the upper left corner appears the detail of the fortifications of the fortress, titled Plan of Roses and of its attacks. This battle plan by Beaulieu remains one of the oldest cartographic documents relating to the city of Roses. In the lower left part is a map of the eastern part of the Alt Empordà, from Figueras to Cadaqués and the Cap de Creus. Very scarce, this engraving comes from the original edition of the Glorieuses Conquestes de Louis le Grand, also known as Grand Beaulieu, a collection dedicated to the sieges and battles of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, between 1630 and 1697.