VANNES, a town of western France, capital of the depart ment of Morbihan, 84 m. N.W. of Nantes on the railway to Brest. Pop. (1931) 16,395• Vannes (Dariorigum), the capital of the Veneti (whence Gwened, the Breton name of the town), led the Armorican league against Julius Caesar, who in 56 s.c. over came their fleet and opened up their country by six roads. St. Paternus, the first bishop, was consecrated in 465. In the 5th century Vannes was ruled for a time by independent counts, but soon came under the yoke of the Franks. Nomenoe, the lieutenant of Louis I., the Pious, in Brittany, assumed the title of king in 843, and one of his brothers was the founder of a line of counts who resisted the Normans in the 9th and loth centuries. Vannes became part of the duchy of Brittany at the end of the Loth cen tury. The estates of Brittany met there for the first time in 1203. In the course of the War of Succession the town was be sieged in 1342. Duke John IV. built here the castle of L'Hermine and made it his habitual residence. In 1487 the town was for a year in the hands of Charles VIII. of France. In 1532 Brittany was definitively united to France.
Vannes is situated 1 o m. from the open sea, at the confluence of two streams forming the Vannes river, which opens into the land-locked gulf of Morbihan about a mile below the town. The old town, lying on a hill facing the south, is surrounded by forti fications of the 14th, 15th and 17th centuries, pierced by four gates and flanked by nine towers and five bastions, connected by battlements. In the Constable's tower Olivier de Clisson was confined in 1387. The modern suburbs, with the port and public buildings, surround the old town. The archaeological museum includes one of the richest collections of prehistoric remains in Europe. The cathedral of St. Peter, burnt by the Normans in the loth century, was rebuilt in the 13th, 15th and 18th centuries. It has remains of a cloister. The curious round Chapelle du Pardon to the left of the nave was built in 1537 in the Italian style. Among the industries are tanning and cotton-weaving. The port of Vannes, to the south of the town, is formed by the Vannes river and is accessible only to small vessels.