Not sure what I unleashed when I posted the original mail on Vauban- clearly a lot of closet fortress buffs out there but one should note garrisons often included families and had considerable impact on civilian populations going far beyond the obvious concentrations of brothels. For those who can read French a short introduction with lots of illustrations is* Places fortes: Bastions du pouvoir *by Nicolas Faucherre published by Rempart. In fact I highly recommend all his publications on French fortifications. I suspect he is already at work on the French submission re World heritage status. The book *Patrimoine Militaire* by Francois Dallemeagne et al, Editions Scala puts Vauban in a wider context of French military architecture of all types not just fortifications and has superb photographs. To lighten things up (snooks to the over serious members of Histarch- archaeology should be fun or why bother) I went with my wife on a trek around the fortifications of Brittany and nearby seafood restaurants a few years ago and stopped on a minor road to view a c19 brick fortified line across a peninsula. My wife offered to jump over the fence to get a better photo but I pointed out a) a sign saying something like Military Zone - entry forbidden and b) remembered that the French special forces trained in the area and not the 18 year old conscripts one so often met on trains. At that moment a car screamed to a halt on the gravelly road and a hard looking guy guy in civvies but clearly army stared at us until we got back in the car and departed. Talking of which has anyone a digital image of the C18 barracks in St Augustine used by the modern National Guard- my nerve failed me at the sight of so many armed guards outside though I should have asked nicely. paul courtney Leicester, UK