RHEIMS, or REIMS, a city and archiepiscopal see in the department of :Marne, France, 'hunted on the Vesle (a tributary of the Aisne), 107 in. e.n.e. of Paris, by the Paris and Strasburg railway. Rheims a very ancient city, is built on the site of Durocortorum, is by Julius Caesar (De Bello Galileo, vi. 44) as the capital of the Remi, from which people it subsequently took its present name. Christianity may have found an entrance into Rheims at an earlier period, but it was not till the middle of the 4th c. that it became a bishop's see. Under the Frank rule it was a place of much importance, and it acquired a deeply religious interest from its having been the scene of the bap tism of Clovis and his chief officers by the bishop, St. Remy, in 496. In the 8th c., it became an archbishopric, and from the 12th c. (in 1179, ht which year Philip Augus tus was there solemnly crowned), it became the place for the coronation of the -kings of France down to the time of Charles X., a vessel of sacred oil, called la sointe ampoule, to which a miraculous origin was ascribed, being preserved for the purpose. The only sovereigns in the long series down to the revolution of 1830 not crowned at Rheims were Henry IV., Napoleon I., and Louis XVIII.. During the frenzy of the revolution, the cathedral was attacked by the populace, and the sainte ampoule destroyed in detestation of royalty; and in 1830 the ceremony of coronation at Rheims was abol ished. Rheims is one of, the principal entrepOts for the wines of Champagne, and the
hills which surround the town are planted with vineyards, It is one of the great cen ters of the woolen manufacture in France, and its manufactures, embracing woolen goods, mixed fabrics in silk and woo], inerinoes, etc., are known in commerce as calf des de Reims. The town is well built, and from the material employed in building, is the chalk-stone of the district, and from the prevalence of the older style of domestic architecture, has a picturesque appearance. Its most striking public building is the cathedral, which, although it still wants the towers of the original design, is one of the finest extant specimens of Gothic architecture. It was built in the first half of the 13th century. Its nave is 466 ft. long by 99 in breadth, with a transept of 160 ft., and the height is 144 ft. Its grandest features. are the western front, which is almost unrivaled, and the so-called angel tower, which rises 59 ft. above the lofty roof. The stained glass is remarkable for its beauty; the baptismal fonts also are of exquisite work manship, and the organ is reputed one of the finest in France. The church of St. Remy is of greater age, and nearly of equal size, but it is of less architectural pretension. The archiepiscopal province of Rheims comprises the sees of Soissons, Chalons, Beauvais, and Amiens. Pop. '76, 80,098.