Corps de Garde - remnant of 14th century ramparts

The length of the ramparts, their rectangular layout and the layout of the streets suggest the presence of a Roman post. Originally, there must have been a ditch, easily fed by the Meuse, an embankment and a wooden palisade. In the 14th century, the archives make several references to the authorisation or obligation imposed on the inhabitants to sell wood cuttings to repair the fortifications. (1331, 1st mention, then 1348, 1358). In 1328, Louis Count of Rethel, the vow of Donchery, had the town fortified at the expense of the inhabitants and neighbouring villages. These fortifications protected the town: in 1348, bands of ‘Jacques’, together with the English, roamed and pillaged the country, burning Attigny and a village very close to Donchery: Pont à Bar. In 1414, at the time of Joan of Arc, the Burgundians attacked Donchery:‘From an inscription in beautiful Latin verse, now lost, it emerged that the Burgundian phalanxes were frightened by a miraculous appearance on the ramparts of Donchery of a troop of numerous warriors with gleaming weapons. With their horses panicking, the enemies had to flee, often falling victim to the fury of their mounts. The inhabitants attributed this extraordinary event to the favourable intervention of Saint Onésime, their patron saint. In 1641, following the defeat of Marshal de Chatillon at La Marfée by the Duke of Bouillon, Frédéric Maurice, Prince of Sedan, and the Imperials, Donchery was besieged for 6 days before the governor, Antoine de Saulieu, capitulated.

1676 Donchery and its outbuildings are united with Sedan. Donchery's fortifications are demolished.

1690 the town was authorised to build a new enclosure flanked by half bastions, and the land bordering the fortifications was leased to the inhabitants.

On the night of 13-14 August 1940, the Germans used the moats of the ramparts to build a boat bridge before launching it over the Meuse and invading France. The Corps de Garde, near the Porte de Bourgogne, bears witness to the importance of the ramparts.