1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chaumont-en-Bassigny

CHAUMONT-EN-BASSIGNY, a town of eastern France, capital of the department of Haute-Marne, a railway junction 163 m. E.S.E. of Paris on the main line of the Eastern railway to Belfort. Pop. (1906) 12,089. Chaumont is picturesquely situated on an eminence between the rivers Marne and Suize in the angle formed by their confluence. To the west a lofty viaduct over the Suize carries the railway. The church of St-Jean-Baptiste dates from the 13th century, the choir and lateral chapels belonging to the 15th and 16th. In the interior the sculptured triforium (15th century), the spiral staircase in the transept and a Holy Sepulchre are of interest. The lycée and the hospital have chapels of the 17th and 16th centuries respectively. The Tour Hautefeuille (a keep of the 11th century) is the principal relic of a château of the counts of Champagne; the rest of the site is occupied by the law courts. In the Place de l’Escargot stands a statue of the chemist Philippe Lebon (1767–1804), born in Haute-Marne. Chaumont is the seat of a prefect and of a court of assizes, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a lycée, training colleges, and a branch of the Bank of France. The main industries are glove-making and leather-dressing. The town has trade in grain, iron, mined in the vicinity, and leather. In 1190 it received a charter from the counts of Champagne. It was here that in 1814 Great Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia concluded the treaty (dated March 1, signed March 9) by which they severally bound themselves not to conclude a separate peace with Napoleon, and to continue the war until France should have been reduced within the boundaries of 1792.