omewhat.
1645: Toward the end of the Thirty Years' War the "old town" was burned down by Bavarian (i.e. Catholic) troops. It was rebuilt, but without the former fortifications, which gave it the status of a village-like settlement. It soon vanished from historical records. The "new town" had survived.
1688�1697: The "War of the Palatinian Succession" (also called the Nine Years War) caused tremendous destruction in Southwestern Germany. The French "sun king" Louis XIV's efforts to expand the territory of France up to the Upper Rhine river and to put the Elector Palatine under pressure to severe its ties with the League of Augsburg included the Br�lez le Palatinat! tactics of destroying major towns on both sides of the Rhine river. These tactics seem to have been mainly the idea of the French war minister, Fran�ois Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois.
Pforzheim was occupied by French troops on October 10, 1688. Commanding officer is said to have been Joseph de Montclar. The town was forced to accommodate a large number of soldiers and had to pay a large amount of "contributions" to the French. When the army unit was about to depart early in the morning of January 21, 1689 (obviously because an army of the Holy Roman Empire had been approaching), they set many major buildings on fire, including the palais, the city hall, and vicarages. About 70 houses (i.e. one quarter of all houses) and part of the town's fortifications were reportedly destroyed.
Between August 2 and August 4, the French army under the general command of Marshal Jacques Henri de Durfort de Duras again crossed the Rhine river and began the destruction of major towns in Baden. On August 10, 1689, a French army unit under the command of General Ez�chiel du Mas, Comte de M�lac appeared in front of Pforzheims town gates, but this time the town refused to surrender. In response, the French army began shelling the town with cannons from the Rod hill located southwest of the
