Châtellerault

Châtellerault, a town in the French department of Vienne, on the river Vienne, 40 miles S. of Tours by rail. A handsome stone bridge, with a gateway built by Sully at one end, connects it with a suburb on the other side of the river. It is a smoky, dingy place, one of the chief seats of the cutlery manufacture in France, and since 1820 has had a government small-arms factory. Its river-port makes it the entrepôt for the produce of an extensive district. The title of Duke of Châtellerault was conferred by Henry II. in 1548 on James Hamilton, Earl of Arran and Regent of Scotland; and it now is claimed by both the Duke of Abercorn and the Duke of Hamilton—by the latter under an imperial decree (1864) of Napoleon III. Pop. (1872) 13,360; (1891) 18,112.