Tower of Philippe de Valois, Vienne
to-day, also known as the “Clef de l’Empire,” is thus much more explicitly named, for it was in a way a sort of guardian outpost which controlled the entrance and exit to and from the neighbouring Lyonnais.
Vienne, being the outgrowth of a city of great antiquity, its Roman remains are numerous and splendid, from the bare outlines of its Amphitheatre to its almost perfectly preserved Temple d’Auguste. Monuments of its feudal epoch are not wanting either, though no splendid domestic or civic chateau exists to-day in its entirety. Instead there are scattered here and there about the town many fragmentary reminders of the days of the first Burgundian kingdom, and of the later city of the counts and Dauphins.
In 879 A.D. the ruler of the province, Boson, Comte de Vienne, Arles et Provence, by his ambition and energy, was proclaimed king by the barons and bishops assembled in the Chateau de Mantaille, belonging to the Archbishop of Vienne and situated at Saint Rambert, between Vienne and Valence.
In the Rue de l’Hopital one sees two coiffed towers rising high above the surrounding gables. They are all that remain of the semi-barbarian Comte Boson’s palace. In the passage entered by an antique portal, and running between two rows of rather squalid buildings, there is a slab which bears the following inscription:
| LE PALAIS DE BOSON SERVIT D’HOTEL DE VILLE DE 1551-1771. |