REMIREMONT  , a

town of eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Vosges, 17 M . S.S.E. of Epinal by rail, on the Moselle, a mile below its confluence with the Moselotte . Pop. town, 8782; commune, 10,548 . Remiremont is surrounded by forest-clad mountains, and commanded by Fort Parmont, one of the Moselle line of defensive works . The abbey church, consecrated in 1051, has a crypt of the xrth century in which are the tombs of some of the abbesses, but as a whole belongs to the late 13th century . The abbatial residence (which now contains the mairie, the court-house and the public library) has been twice rebuilt in modern times (in 1750 and again after a fire in 1871), but the original plan and style have been preserved in the imposing front, the vestibule and the grand staircase . Some of the houses of the canonesses dating from the 17th and 18th centuries also remain . Remiremont is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance, a communal college, a board of trade-arbitration and a charnber of arts and manufactures . Its industries include cotton-spinning and weaving, the manufacture of hosiery and embroidery, iron and copper founding and the manufacture of boots and shoes and brushes . Remiremont (Romarici Mons) derives its name from St Romaric, one of the companions of St Columban of Luxeuil, who in the 7th century founded a monastery and a convent on the hills above the present town . In 910 the nuns, menaced by the invasion of the Hungarians, took refuge at Remiremont, which had grown up round a villa of the Frankish kings, and in the 11th century they permanently settled there . Enriched by dukes of Lorraine, kings of France and emperors of Germany, the ladies of Remiremont attained great power .

The

abbess was a princess of the empire, and received consecration at the hands of the pope . The fifty canonesses were selected from those who could give proof of noble descent . On Whit-Monday the neighbouring parishes paid homage to the chapter in a ceremony called the " Kyrioles "; and on their accession the dukes of Lorraine, the immediate suzerains of the abbey, had to come to Remiremont to swear to continue their protection . The " War of the Scutcheons " (Panonceaux) in 1566 between the duke and the abbess ended in favour of the duke; and the abbess never recovered her former position . In the 17th century the ladies of Remiremont fell away so much from the original monastic rule as to take the title of countesses, renounce their vows and marry . The town was attacked by the French in 1638 and ruined by the earthquake of 1682 . With the rest of Lorraine it was joined to France in 1766 . The monastery on the hill and the nunnery in the town were both suppressed in the Revolution .