TONNERRE  , a

town of north-central France, capital of. an arrondissement in the department of Yonne, 52 M . S.E. of Sens on the Paris-Lyon railway . Pop . (1906), 3974 . It is situated on a slope of the vineclad hills on the left bank of the Armancon . At the foot of the hill rises the spring of Fosse-Dionne, enclosed in a circular basin 49 ft. in diameter . The town has two interesting churches . That of St Pierre, which crowns the hill, possesses a fine lateral portal of the Renaissance period to which the church, with the exception of the choir (1351), belongs . The church of Notre-Dame is mainly Gothic, but the facade is a fine specimen of Renaissance architecture . The Salle des Malades, a large timber-roofed apartment in the hospital, dates from the end of the 13th century and is used as a chapel . It is 330 ft. long and contains the tombs of Margaret of Burgundy, wife of Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, and foundress of the hospital, and of Francois-Michel Le Tellier, marquis of Louvois, war minister of Louis XIV . The hospital itself was rebuilt in the 19th century .

The Renaissance HCtel d'

Uzes was built in the 16th century . Tonnerre is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance . The vineyards of the vicinity produce well-known wines . The trade of the town is chiefly in wine, in the good building-stone found in the neighbourhood and in Portland cement . Cooperage is carried on . Its ancient name of Tornodorum points to a Gallic or Gallo-Roman origin for Tonnerre . In the 6th century it became the capital of the region of Tonnerrois and in the loth century of a countship . After passing into the possession of several noble families, it was bought from a count of Clermont-Tonnerre by Louvois, by whose descendants it was held up to the time of the Revolution .