Amsterdam, the Spider and its Web

At the demise of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces in 1795, when the hussars of the French Republic reached the Dam, the city of Amsterdam was shaped like a spider's web with the Dam - the square at the heart of the city - playing the part of spider sitting virtually in the middle, a hem of military fortifications delimiting the web on three sides, and the whole web then resting on the harbor front on the Ij, which is the site, or at least one of the sites, at the root of the city's wealth and power.