EMBRUN  , a

town in the department of the Hautes Alpes in S.E . France . It is built at a height of 2854 ft. on a plateau that rises above the right bank of the Durance . It is 271 M. by rail from Briancon and 24 M. from Gap . Its ramparts were demolished in 1884 . In 1906 the communal pop . (including the garrison) was 3752 . Besides the Tour Brune (11th century) and the old archiepiscopal palace, now occupied by government offices, barracks, &c., the chief object of interest in Embrun is its splendid cathedral church, which dates from the second half of the 12th century . Above its side door, called the Real, there existed till 1585 (when it was destroyed by the Huguenots) a fresco, probably painted in the 13th century, representing the Madonna: this was the object of a celebrated pilgrimage for many centuries . Louis XI. habitually wore on his hat a leaden image of this Madonna, for which he had a very great veneration, since between 1440 and 1461, during the lifetime of his father, he had been the dauphin, and as such ruler of this province . Embrun was the Eburodunum or Ebredunum of the Romans, and the chief town of the province of the Maritime Alps . The episcopal see was founded in the 4th century, and became an archbishopric about 800 .

In 1147 the archbishops obtained from the

emperor Conrad III. very extensive temporal rights, and the rank of princes of the Holy Roman Empire . In 1232 the county of the Embrunais passed by marriage to the dauphins of Viennois . In 1791 the archiepiscopal see was suppressed, the region being then transferred to the diocese of Gap, so that the once metropolitan cathedral church is now simply a parish church . The town was sacked in 1585 by the Huguenots and in 1692 by the duke of Savoy . Henri Arnaud (1641-1721), the Waldensian pastor and general, was born at Embrun . See A . Albert, Histoire du diocese d'Embrun (2 vols., Embrun, 1783) ; M . Fornier, Histoire generale des Alpes Maritimes ou Cottiennes et particuliere de leur metropolitaine Embrun (written 1626–1643), published by the Abbe Paul Guillaume (3 vols., Paris and Gap, 189o–1891) ; A . Fabre, Recherches historiques sur le elerinage des rocs de France a N . D. d'Embrun (Grenoble, 1859)); A . Sauret, Essai historique sur la ville d'Embrun (Gap, 1860) . (W .

A . B .