COSNE  , a

town of central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Nievre, on the right bank of the Loire at its junction with the Nohain, 37 M . N.N.W. of Nevers by the Paris-Lyon railway . Pop . (1906) town, 5750; commune, 8437 . Two suspension bridges unite it to the left bank of the Loire . The church of St Aignan is a building of the 12th century, restored in the 16th and 18th centuries; the only portions in the Romanesque style are the apse and the north-west portal . It formerly belonged to a Benedictine priory depending on the abbey of La Charite (Nievre) . The manufacture of files, flour-milling and tanning are carried on in the town which has a subprefecture, a tribunal of first instance and a communal college . Cosne is mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary under the name of Condate, but it was not till the middle ages that it rose into importance as a military post . In the 12th century the bishop of Auxerre and the count of Nevers agreed to a division of the supremacy over the town and its territory .