Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Deux Ponts

DEUX PONTS, in German Zweibrücken, and in Latin Bipontium, a town of Bavaria, in the Palatinate, 50 miles west of Spires, on the Erbach, which ultimately finds its way to the Moselle. Besides a court of appeal for the Palatinate, a penitentiary, and various administrative offices, it possesses a public library, a gymnasium, and a synagogue. Its most important buildings are the old ducal palace, greatly damaged by the French in the 18th century, and in 1868 transformed into a court-house, Alexander's Church, with the ducal burial-place, and the church which was built by Charles XL of Sweden. The industry of the inhabitants is mainly devoted to the manufacture of cotton, silk-plush, tobacco, and oil. Population in 1875, 9349. Deux Fonts, which derives its name from the two bridges over the Erbach, was before 1394 the seat of an imperial countship. On the partition of the Palatinate, with which it had been incorporated, it became in 1410 an independent duchy, which in 1654 furnished a king to Sweden in the person of Charles Gustavus. The death of Charles XII. in 1718 broke its connection with the Swedish crown ; and the extinction of the Kleuburg line, to which it was next transmitted, passed it on to the present ruling family of Bavaria. In literary history it is interesting as the place where the Bipontine editions of the Greek, Latin, and French classics were published by a learned society in the latter part of the 18th century. See J. C. Crollius, Origines Bipontince, 1761-1769 ; Lehmann, Voll- stdndiye Gfeschichte des Herzogthums Zweibriicken, Munich, 1867.