The city also is famous for its microtechnology. In historic times the town was first recorded in the journals detailing Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul as the largest town of the Sequani, a smaller Gaulic tribe; he named the town as Vesontio possibly Latinized and mentions that it was surrounded by a wooden palisade. The locals retain their ancient heritage, referring to themselves as Bisontins feminine: Bisontine.
The city was in effect a Habsburg fief, which took it from Austrian to Spanish influence. Surrounding the central city are walls built in that era. Between the train station and the central city is a complex moat system through which traffic has been directed. Built on a mountaintop and bounded by sheer cliffs on one side, the Doubs River on the others, and the Boucle or Shield, the city center had a fantastic defensive stance. Upon this hilltop, Vauban built the largest of his structures in the region.
The Citadelle has a dual dry moat, with an outer and inner court. Nevertheless, action was limited to a bombing of the railway complex in and four days of ultimately futile German resistance to U.
Also the local government granted approvals for a right "of entrage" and an annual "census" to the Jews. In a letter of December 14, , he gave to the queen the spoils from the Jews, whom he had driven from his territory. Some years afterward they were recalled. When Black Plague broke out in , the Jews were accused of being the cause, persecuted, and many executed. In , the wretched survivors who had escaped the massacres were exiled from the province by a decree of Princess Marguerite.
Five of them, on account of previous commercial relations, having succeeded in entering the city, asked permission to remain at least until the end of the winter.
