ELBEUF, a town of northern France in the department of Seine-Inf erieure, 14 m. S.S.W. of Rouen by the Ouest-Etat rail way. Pop. (1931) 17,724. Elbeuf, a town of wide, clean streets, with handsome houses and factories, stands on the left bank of the Seine at the foot of hills over which extends the forest of Elbeuf. Elbeuf was, in the 13th century, the centre of an im portant fief held by the house of Harcourt, but its previous history goes back at least to the early years of the Norman occupation, when it appears under the name of Hollebof. It passed into the hands of the houses of Rieux and Lorraine, and was raised to the rank of a duchy in the peerage of France by Henry III. in favour of Charles of Lorraine (d. 16o5), grandson of Claude, duke of Guise, master of the hounds and master of the horse of France. The last duke of Elbeuf was Charles Eugene of Lorraine, prince de Lambesc, who died in 1825. The churches of St. Etienne and St. Jean, both Renaissance with later additions, preserve 16th century stained glass. A tribunal and chamber of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a school of industry and a school of cloth manufacture are among its institutions. The town with its suburbs, Orival (pop. 1,019), Caudebec-les-Elbeuf (8,856), St. Aubin (3,971) and St. Pierre (3,029), is one of the principal and most ancient seats of the woollen manufacture in France. As a river-port it has a brisk trade in the produce of the surrounding district as well as in the raw materials of its manufactures, especially in wool from La Plata, Australia and Germany.