La Souterraine was always a walled town; it needed to be, especially in the Hundred Years war, when it was attacked alternately by both French and English. Interestingly, when the walls were no longer of use, a certain defensive strategy took over. It's like this: most towns pulled their walls down and laid out roads in their place, called Boulevards (which, like the English equivalent Bulwarks, is an old name for walls) and built houses along them. Here, they pulled most of the walls down and replaced them with houses. putting the new road outside. This left a certain defensibility, especially as they left the two gates in the streets which give access to the town.
