665-68 andBlumenstein Castle 1725-28) were built. A number of new public buildings were also added including; the Arsenal (1610�19), the town hall with its north staircase tower (1632�34) and its eastern facade (Archive tower 1624, completed 1703-14), the Jesuit church (1680�89), the new Ambassadorenhof (1717�24), the Holy Spirit Hospital in a suburb (1735�1800) and the new classicist Church of St. Ursus (1763�90). In the 16th Century the town walls were reinforced with the Basel gate and three round towers.
Between 1667-1727, following plans by Francesco Polatta, Jacques Le Prestre Tarade and S�bastien de Vauban, the city built fortifications with eleven full and half bastions. The new city wall increased the size of the city by including the eastern suburb of Kreuzacker. Until the 18th Century, prisoners were housed in the towers of the medieval and early modern fortifications store. Between 1753-61 a new prison was built outside the city walls, which remained in use into the 20th Century. A gallows was first mentioned in 1460 and was located northeast of the city near Feldbrunnen. A second gallows was located to the southwest of the city.
The Early Modern Period in Solothurn ended, as in the rest of Switzerland, with the French invasion in 1798.
Modern Solothurn
Following the capitulation of Solothurn on 2 March 1798, the French General Balthasar Alexis Henri Antoine von Schauenburg set up a provisional government on the following day. The new government met in April to set up the new constitution. The eleven oldVogtei(baillywicks) were replaced by five districts; Solothurn, Biberist, Balsthal, Olten and Dornach. The municipal B�rgergemeinde laid claim to the assets of the defunct city-state and in 1801 it received the S�nderungsconvention, large estates and extensive forest land outside the city. In 1831 the cantonal parliament withdrew all political power from the eleven city guilds. Over the following years (1831�1842) all
