Sedan

se-don, a manufacturing town of western France. It is situated on a small plain on the Meuse River, among the Ardennes Mountains. It has been noted long for the manufacture of fine cloth, an industry giving employment to 10,000 workmen. The city was the birthplace of the French Marshal Turenne, whose name has been given to the principal square. The sedan chair, a sort of covered chair or litter, fashionable in the age of Queen Anne, is supposed to have originated here. Sedan is noted especially as the scene of the surrender of a large army during the Franco-Prussian War. The Germans hemmed the French in, occupied the surrounding heights, and poured down a destructive fire of shot and shell, forcing the capitulation of Napoleon III. Thirty-nine generals, 230 staff officers, 2,600 officers, and 83,000 men in the ranks surrendered with him. A local museum has been established in which relics from the neighboring battlefields are preserved. A graphic account of the battle may be read in Downfall, by Zola, the French novelist.