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[[File:Bombardement Bruxelles 1695 01.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Map of Brussels immediately following the [[Bombardment of Brussels|1695 bombardment]]. The white areas in the centre are the areas destroyed. Monterrey Fort is visible on the right. North is roughly to the bottom-left.]]
In the 16th century, there were seven gates: [[Laeken Gate|Laeken]], [[
In the 16th and 17th centuries, new [[siege weapon]]s and techniques, including the advent of [[artillery]], forced the city to modernise the defences in order to keep potential attackers at a safe distance from the walls, including the addition of ditches, [[bastion]]s and [[ravelin]]s. Monterey Fort was the most important defensive work, its name coming from the [[Spain|Spanish]] count responsible for modernising the defences. The fort was built between 1672 and 1675, by the [[military engineer]]s Merex and Blom, on the heights of ''Obbrussel'' ({{lang-odt|Obbrusselsche|link=no}}, for "Upper Brussels", now [[Saint-Gilles, Belgium|Saint-Gilles]]), south of the [[Halle Gate]].<ref name = hfvb/> As with the rest of the city's fortifications, the fort was ineffective, and was not able to prevent the French [[Bombardment of Brussels (1695)|bombardment of Brussels]] in 1695, from the heights of [[Scheut]], in Anderlecht, as part of the [[War of the Grand Alliance]]. The defensive works proved equally ineffective when French troops [[Siege of Brussels|seized the city]] in 1746 during the [[War of the Austrian Succession]], afterwards leaving the defensive works in ruins.<ref name = hfvb/> By that time, siege was no longer an important part of warfare. Due to the growth of commerce and improved roads, the fortifications did little more than frustrate transit into and out of the city.
In 1782, Emperor [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Joseph II]] ordered the dismantling of most fortifications in the [[Low Countries]], including those of Brussels.<ref name = hfvb>{{cite web | title = Histoire des fortifications de la ville de Bruxelles | language=fr | url = http://www.idearts.be/magazine/dossiers/fortification/fortifications.htm | publisher = iDearts | year = 2003 | access-date = February 16, 2008 }}</ref> The dismantling work of the exterior defences began in the east of the city. Monterey Fort was sold and destroyed, and all of the Gates were [[Demolition|raze]]d with the exception of the [[Laeken Gate]] and the [[Halle Gate]].<ref name = hfvb/>
In 1795, when [[Republican France]] invaded and [[Annexation|annex]]ed the [[Low Countries]], the demolitions were stopped, not resuming until an order from [[Napoleon]] in 1804. The Laeken Gate was destroyed in 1808. By an [[Ordonnance (French constitutional law)|ordinance]] on 19 May 1810, the French dictator ordered the second walls demolished and replaced by boulevards with a [[median]] in the centre.<ref name = hfvb/> The fall of the [[First French Empire]] prevented the project's immediate execution.
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<gallery widths="170" heights="170">
File:Porte de Hall Hallepoort 2011 Brussels-side2.jpg|{{center|The [[Halle Gate]] in 2011}}
File:2 ème enceinte, Porte de Louvain.JPG|{{center|The [[Leuven Gate]] in 1612}}▼
File:Porte de Schaerbeek.JPG|{{center|The [[Schaerbeek Gate]], {{circa|1780}}}}▼
File:Porte Anderlecht.jpg|{{center|The [[Anderlecht Gate]], {{circa|1780}}}}
▲File:
File:Porte Namur.jpg|{{center|The [[Namur Gate]], {{circa|1780}}}}
</gallery>
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