 During the Seven Years' War, the British briefly occupied the town after the Raid on Cherbourg in 1758.The British destroyed military buildings and warehouses before departing.With the development of a new pool of trade in 1769, Cherbourg - a longstanding commercial port of minor importance, a city without a university or cultural activity, regularly looted, and having weak relations with Paris - acquired a weight in the Cotentin which translated, on the eve of the French Revolution, by the creation of networks of sociability by the middle-class united in associations - such as the in 1755 and the lodge "Faithful mason".