UZES  , a

town of southern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Gard, finely situated on an eminence above the Alzon, 16 m . N. by E. of Nimes by road . Pop . (1906) 4008 . Uzes, the seat of an episcopal see from the 5th century to 1790, has a cathedral almost destroyed by the Protestants during the religious wars and rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries, but still flanked by a round tower of five storeys lighted by arched openings and dating from the 12th century . The Duche, a chateau of powerful lords, at first viscounts, and in 1565 dukes, of Uzes, preserves a donjon originally of the 12th century; the main building, flanked by a Gothic chapel, is Renaissance in style . The most ancient structure in the town is a crypt beneath a private house, attributed to the early centuries of the Christian era . The sub-prefecture and the tribunal of first instance occupy the old bishop's palace (17th century) . There is a statue of Admiral Brueys (1753-1798), a native of the town . Uzes has a communal college for boys, and carries on the manufacture of silk, bricks and fireproof earthenware, and liquorice, and trade in the truffles for which the district is noted .