This Museum exhibits an unrivalled collection of historical models of the forts and fortified towns spread along the former French borders. The collection of relief maps bears witness to more than two centuries of military siege history, from its creation in , under Louis XIV, until the last quarter of the 19th Century when the fortified bastions were abandoned.
The Museum of Relief Maps exhibits, at the Invalides in Paris and at the fine arts museum in Lille, an unrivalled collection of a hundred historical models of the forts or fortified towns that were spread along the former French borders. The practice of making relief maps and models of fortified towns for strategic purposes was the result of an initiative by Louvois.
In the minister of Louis XIV was responsible for creating a collection that would continue to grow richer for more than two centuries. The king's engineers thus created relief maps not only of French places situated on the borders of the kingdom, but also foreign towns captured from the enemy.
Apart from their military interest, they were valued as prestige objects, testament to the power of the monarchy and the kingdom, as well as being commemorative pieces illustrating important battles and great sieges. Their production only ended towards , with the disappearance of bastion fortifications. Used in military training, the collection of relief maps now represents an exceptional source of information for the history of the architecture, town planning and changes to the countryside.
The models were created with great attention to detail, under the supervision of military engineers and with help from a large amount of written and graphic documentation. Because of its eminent historical interest, it was classified as a historic monument in Sixteen relief maps have been sent on loan to the museum of Fine Arts in Lille. Strasbourg was thus protected by a ring of detached, half-buried, heavily fortified and armed structures, even before the construction of the new urban line of fortifications that would be started in after the commissioning of the first forts.
