Mougins (; ; ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. In 2019, it had a population of 19,982. It is located on the heights of Cannes, in the arrondissement of Grasse. Mougins is a 15-minute drive from Cannes. The town is surrounded by forests, most notably the Valmasque forest. In the town there are pines, olives and cypress trees. History The hilltop of Mougins has been occupied since the pre-Roman period. Ancient Ligurian tribes who inhabited the coastal area between Provence and Tuscany, were eventually absorbed into the spread of the Roman Empire and then became part of an official Ligurian state that was created by Emperor Augustus (X Regio). On the Aurelia way linking from Rome to Arles, Muginum came into being during the 1st century BC. In 1056, Gillaume de Gauceron, the Count of Antibes, gave the Mougins hillside to the Monks of Saint Honorat (from the nearby Îles de Lerins just off the coast of Cannes) who continued to administer the village, and until the eve of the French Revolution in 1789 its history matched that of the abbey. The former monks' court house, a vaulted room that is now called the "Salle des Moines" ("The Monk's Hall") was located on the first floor of the restaurant L'Amandier. Built 260 m up at the top of the peak, the village was fortified in the Middle Ages. Its spiral form, its ramparts and its three gates, of which only the Porte Sarrazine (Sarrazine Gate) still exists today, gave this fiefdom a strategic position despite the many wartime attacks over the course of its history. The village grew outside its old fortifications, while still adhering to the circular structure of the ramparts. During the 18th-century War of the Austrian Succession, the village was plundered by the Austro-Sardinian armies and damaged by fire. Following this, some of the ramparts were deconstructed and several new little streets of early 19th-century houses were built. Personalities On 1 March 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte, exiled until this time on the island of Elba, landed on the beaches of Golfe-Juan with his troops. The emperor began the “One Hundred Day’s March” to return to Paris and seize power. He crossed Mougins to join Grasse, Digne, Gap and Grenoble. Commandant Amédée-François Lamy was born in Mougins in February 1858, and died at the Battle of Kousséri in Chad