Sedan
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Sedan. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
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.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a fortified town of France, department of Ardennes, on the Meuse, 10 miles E. S. E. of Mezières. Sedan has been long celebrated for its woolen manufactures, consisting principally of fine black cloths and cassimeres. Here, Sept. 1-2, 1 1870, a battle was fought between the French, French, under Napoleon III., and the Prussians, under King William and the crown prince, in which the former being defeated, the emperor, while still at the head of an army of more than 100,000 men, surrendered himself and his troops, along with the strong and well-appointed fortress of Sedan to the Prussians. In the World War the Germans occupied Sedan until the closing days of the Meuse- Argonne offensive, when it was occupied by French troops. Pop. about 22,000.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 could close the story with Sedan retaken by French troops at the end of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, but the town's worst hour was still ahead: in May 1940 German panzers crossed the Meuse at Sedan and broke the French line, the decisive stroke of the fall of France, and Sedan was occupied again until 1944. The fine black cloth trade that Aiton's said employed 10,000 in 1910 has all but vanished with the collapse of French woollens in the later 20th century, and the population has fallen to roughly 16,000, below the 22,000 Collier's recorded. What draws visitors now is the vast 15th-century Château de Sedan, promoted as the largest fortified castle in Europe, together with the battlefield sites. Turenne's birthplace and the sedan-chair story are still repeated locally, though the chair's supposed origin here has never been proved.
Written for this edition, 2026.