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Luneville

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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LUNEVILLE, an industrial and garrison town of north-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, 21 m. E.S.E. of Nancy on the railway to Strassburg. Pop. (1906) town, 19,199; commune, 24,266 (including troops). The town stands on the right bank of the Meurthe between that river and its affluent the Vezouze, a little above their confluence. Its château, designed early in the 18th century by the royal architect Germain Boffrand, was the favourite residence of Duke Leopold of Lorraine, where he gathered round him an academy composed of eminent men of the district. It is now a cavalry barracks, and the gardens form a public promenade. Luneville is an important cavalry station with a large riding school. The church of St Jacques with its two domed towers dates from 1730-1745. There are statues of General Count Antoine de Lasalle, and of the Conven tional Abbe Henri Gregoire. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect, and has a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. It carries on cotton-spinning and the manufacture of railway material, motor vehicles, porcelain, toys, hosiery, embroidery, straw-hats and gloves. Trade is in grain, wine, tobacco, hops and other agricultural produce.

The name of Luneville (Lunae villa) is perhaps derived from an ancient cult of Diana, the moon goddess, a sacred fountain and medals with the effigy of this goddess having been found at Leormont, some 2 m. E. of the town. Luneville belonged to Austrasia, and after various changes fell, in 1344, to the house of Lorraine. A walled town in the middle ages, it suffered in the Thirty Years' War and in the campaigns of Louis XIV. from war, plague and famine. The town flourished again under Dukes Leopold and Stanislas, on the death of the latter of whom, which took place at Luneville, Lorraine was united to France (1766). The treaty of Luneville between France and Austria (1801) confirmed the former power in the possession of the left bank of the Rhine.