A little history of tour Magne
And also
The tops
We are now near the tour Magne. In the past, it was part of the city surrounding wall, and the tower used to be a fortress: Franks, Vandals, Visigoths in the beginning of the 5th century, who invaded the Languedoc, demolished all the Roman buildings of the area.
Zama expelled Visigoths and seized Nîmes in 720, and Saracens took control of the city: they surrounded it with big walls, using the Magne tower.
Charles Martel in 737 demolished the tour and its fortifications, in order to punish inhabitants, because they helped the Saracens during the war.
In 1185, Nîmes fell to the count of Toulouse, Raymond V, who transformed the tower into a fortress.
And... one fine day, a man called François Traucat, the city gardener, was allowed by king of France Henri IV, in 1601, to dig the tower: some said there was a treasure here!
If Traucat found it, he had to give half of it to the king! But Traucat damaged the tower, he even dug a hole which destabilized the foundations... The city decided to reinforce those ones in 1841.