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La Ferte-Bernard

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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A town of western France, in the department of Sarthe, on the Huisne, 27 m. N.E. of Le Mans, on the railway from Paris to that town. Pop. (1906) 4358. La Ferte carries on cloth manufacture and flour-milling and has trade in horses and cattle. Its church of Notre Dame has a choir (16th century) with graceful apse-chapels of Renaissance architecture and remarkable windows of the same period; the remainder of the church is in the Flamboyant Gothic style. The town hall occupies the superstructure and flanking towers of a fortified gateway of the 15th century.

La Ferte-Bernard owes its origin and name to a stronghold (fermete ) built about the 11th century and afterwards held by the family of Bernard. In 1424 it did not succumb to the English troops till after a four months' siege. It belonged in the 16th century to the family of Guise and supported the League, but was captured by the royal forces in 1590.