Vincennes

/vin senz"/; for 2 also Fr. /vaonn sen"/, n.

1. a city in SW Indiana, on the Wabash: the first permanent settlement in Indiana, 1702. 20,857.

2. a city in N France, near Paris. 44,467.

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▪ France

      town, eastern residential suburb of Paris, Val-de-Marne département, Île-de-France région, north-central France, immediately outside the Paris city limits.

      The château of Vincennes, which succeeded an earlier fortified hunting lodge on the site, consists of four principal buildings—the keep, the chapel, and two pavilions—enclosed by an enceinte with nine towers. The magnificent and well-preserved keep, the finest surviving in France, 170 feet (52 metres) in height, was begun under Philip VI, completed under Charles V (reigned 1364–80), and used thereafter as a royal residence until Versailles was built. The chapel, not completed until 1552 but in Gothic style, has a Flamboyant facade and a great rose window. The two pavilions—the Pavillon du Roi and the Pavillon de la Reine—were built by Louis Le Vau, under the direction of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, during the third quarter of the 17th century.

      After the court deserted the château, it had a checkered history, being used as a porcelain factory, a cadet school, and a small-arms factory. In 1791, during the French Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette saved it from destruction. Napoleon converted it into an arsenal, and in 1840 it was turned into a fortress. The army was removed in 1930 and restoration started, to be interrupted during World War II when the Germans had a supply depot there; in 1944 part of the Pavillon de la Reine was destroyed by an explosion.

      The château has many associations with French history. Four kings of France died there—Louis X, Philip V, Charles IV, and Charles IX—as did Henry V of England and Mazarin. During the reign of Louis XIII it was used as a state prison, and its prisoners included Louis II de Bourbon, the Cardinal de Retz, Denis Diderot, and the Comte de Mirabeau; the Duc d'Enghien was shot there in 1804.

      The Bois de Vincennes was enclosed in the 12th century and, as a royal hunting preserve, was the reason for the château's being built there. The surviving forest is a park, with a zoo, a racecourse, and a sports stadium. Chemicals, housewares, telecommunications and transport equipment, and cosmetics are produced in Vincennes. The town is connected to Paris by a rapid transit rail network. Pop. (1999) 43,595; (2005 est.) 47,200.

▪ Indiana, United States

 city, seat (1790) of Knox county, southwestern Indiana, U.S., on the Wabash River, 51 miles (82 km) north of Evansville. Indiana's oldest city, Vincennes figured prominently in early American history from the time of its settlement (1702, or possibly earlier) by French traders on the site of an Indian village. A fort, one of a chain from Quebec to New Orleans, was erected by the French in 1732, and in 1736 the settlement around it was named for François-Marie Bissot, sieur de Vincennes, its commanding officer. Ceded to the British at the end of the French and Indian War (1763), the settlement was virtually self-governing until the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War and remained predominantly French in population and tradition for almost 100 years after that. A British force occupied the fort (renaming it Fort Sackville) for a brief period, but briefly in 1778 and finally in 1779 it was taken by American forces under George Rogers Clark. Clark's victory at Vincennes, followed by the passage of the Northwest Ordinance (1787), brought an influx of settlers from Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. From 1800 to 1813 Vincennes was the capital of Indiana Territory (commemorated by a state historic site). The Indiana Gazette, the first territorial newspaper, was published there in 1804 by Elihu Stout. At Vincennes, Governor (later President) William Henry Harrison negotiated several treaties with the Native Americans and launched the campaign that culminated in the Battle of Tippecanoe (November 1811). George Rogers Clark National Historical Park (1936, on the former site of the fort), Grouseland (1802–04; the Harrison mansion), and Vincennes University, a junior college founded in 1806, are among the many historic sites in the city. The Basilica of St. Francis Xavier (Old Cathedral), begun in 1826, is still in use. Fort Knox II, from which Harrison and his troops began the military excursion that ended at the Battle of Tippecanoe, is 3 miles (5 km) north of the city.

      The city is a commercial centre for an agricultural region (grains, soybeans, melons) and has some light industries including the manufacture of wire, wood and paper products, and glass. Inc. 1856. Pop. (2000) 18,701; (2005 est.) 18,077.

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