The south and south-east curtain walls of the city have the particularity of being very thin, of the order of 0.75m to 0.80m. As a result, it was impossible to equip them with a walkway whose weight they would not have supported. The reasons why it was not originally planned to build thicker curtain walls is unknown to us. This decision could result from a lack of resources, time or manpower during construction. Another possibility: the slope of the terrain on this side of the fortress may have been considered significant enough to dissuade any attacker from launching an assault that way.
In any case, the absence of a walkway constituted a serious defect in the defense of the site. Having realized this weak point, probably at the end of the siege of 1238, the occupants of Poilvache will remedy the problem by building against the south and south-east curtain walls a series of pillars arranged at almost equal distance from each other. others. It is at the top of these pillars that a walkway will be built. The defense of the fortress will be significantly improved but the curtain walls themselves will remain more fragile than the others, as evidenced by their state of conservation following the excavation. In certain places, the southeast curtain wall appeared almost 100% destroyed, a situation which does not appear anywhere else in Poilvache.
Poilvache 