MONTBRISON  , a

town of east-central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Loire, France, 21 m . N.W. of St Etienne, on the railway from Clermont to St Etienne . Pop . (1906), 6564 . It is situated on a volcanic hill overlooking the Vizezy, a right-hand affluent of the Lignon du Nord . The principal buildings are the once collegiate church of Notre-Dame d'Esperance, founded about 1220 but not finished till the 15th century, and the 14th-century edifice known as the Salle de la Diana (Decana), which was restored by Viollet-le-Duc . There is a statue of the poet Victor de Laprade (d . 1883), a native of the town . Montbrison is the seat of a sub-prefect, of a court of assize and of a tribunal of first instance . There are liqueur-distilleries and flour-mills, and silk ribbons are manufactured; there is considerable commerce in grain . Montbrison belonged to the counts of Forez during the middle ages . In 1801 it became the capital of its department in place of Feurs, but in 1856 the more important town of St .

Etienne was substituted for it .