ZABERN (

See also:

• FRENCH
• FRENCH, DANIEL CHESTER (1850– )
• FRENCH, NICHOLAS (1604-1678)

French, Saverne)  , a town of Germany, in the imperial province of Alsace-Lorraine, district of Lower Alsace, situated on the Rhine-Marne canal at the foot of a pass over the Vosges, and 27 M . N.W. of Strassburg by the railway to Deutsch Avricourt . Pop . (agoo) 8499 . Its principal building, the former episcopal residence, rebuilt by Cardinal de Rohan in 1779, is now used as barracks . There are also a 15th century church and an antiquarian museum . In the vicinity are the ruined castles of Hoch-barr, Grossgeroldseck, Ochsenstein and Greifenstein . Hence a beautiful road, immortalized by Goethe in Dichtung and Wahrheit, leads across the Vosges to Pfalzburg . Zabern (Tres Tabernae) was an important place in the times of the Romans, and, after being destroyed by the Alamanni, was rebuilt by the emperor Julian . During the Peasants' War the town was occupied, in 1525, by the insurgents, who were driven out in their turn by Duke Anton of Lorraine . It suffered much from the ravages of the Thirty Years' War, but the episcopal castle, then destroyed, was subsequently rebuilt, and in 1852 was converted by Louis Napoleon into a place of residence for widows of knights of the Legion of Honour: See Fischer, Geschichte der Stadt Zabern (Zabern, 1824) .