VITRE  , a

town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine, situated on a hill rising from the left bank of the Vilaine, 24 M . E. of Rennes by rail . Pop . (1906) town, 7106; commune, 10,092 . The town largely retains its feudal aspect . The ramparts on the north side and on the west, consisting of a machicolated wall with towers at intervals, are still standing . Only one gateway remains of the original castle, founded towards the end of the 1th century; the rest was rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries (the best period of Breton military architecture) and restored in recent times . It is now occupied by a prison, a museum of natural history and painting and the town library . The church of Notre-Dame, formerly a priory of the abbeyof St Melaine of Rennes; dates from the 15th and 16th centuries . An outside stone pulpit is a fine example of 16th-century sculpture . The church possesses a fine enamelled triptych of the 16th century . A tower of the 16th century is all that remains of the church of St Martin .

The

chateau of Les Rochers 3 m. from Vitre was the residence of Madame de Sevigne . Vitre was formerly a Breton barony, and belonged in the loth century to the younger branch of the counts of Rennes . In 1295 it passed to Guy IX., baron of Laval, on his marriage with the heiress, and afterwards successively belonged to the families of Rieux, Coligny and La Tremoille . The town was seized by Charles VIII. in 1488 . Protestantism spread under the rule of the houses of Rieux and Coligny; Vitre became a Huguenot stronghold; and a Protestant church was established, which was not suppressed till the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 . Philip Emmanuel, duke of Mercceur, the head of the members of the League in Brittany, besieged the town in vain for five months in .1589 . The estates of Brittany, over which the barons of Vitre and of Leon alternately presided, met here several times .