Aix-la-Chapelle was known to the Romans as early as the time of Caesar, and is mentioned by Pliny under the name of Vetera. It was, after 768, the favorite residence of Charle magne, who made it the capital of all his do minions north of the Alps and spared no expense in beautifying it. Here he died in 814, and in the cathedral his tomb is marked by a large flat slab with the inscription Carol° Magno. During the Middle Ages it was a free imperial city, and its citizens throughout the empire were exempt from feudal service, from attachment of their goods and persons and from all tolls and taxes. Thirty-seven German emperors and 11 empresses have been crowned in this city, and the imperial insignia were preserved here till 1795, when they were carried to Vienna, and are now in the imperial treas ury. By the peace of Luneville (9 Feb. 1801), which separated the left bank of the Rhine from Germany, the city was transferred to France, in whose possession it remained till 1814, when it was restored to Prussia. It was a busy base for military operations during the Franco-Prussian War 1870-71, and during the European War from 1914 was also an import ant aerial station.
Congress of, an important congress held in October and No vember 1818. By this congress the army of the allies, consisting of 150,000 British, Russian, Atistrian, Prussian and other troops, which, since the second peace at Paris, had remained in France to watch over its tranquillity, was withdrawn after France had paid the contri bution imposed at the peace of 1815. Thus the
Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle restored inde pendence to France, and readmitted her as one of the Great Powers to the councils of Europe.
Treaties of Peace Concluded at. The first, 2 May 1668, put an end to the war carried on against Spain by Louis XIV in 1667, after the death of his father-in-law, Philip IV, in support of his claims to a great part of the Spanish Netherlands, which he urged in the name of his queen, the Infanta Maria Theresa, pleading the jus devolu nonis prevailing among private persons in Brabant and Namur. The second peace of Aix la-Chapelle, 18 Oct. 1748, terminated the Aus trian War of Succession in which the parties were at first Louis XV of France and the Em press Maria Theresa and, in the sequel, Spain on the one side and Great Britain, Maria Ther esa and Charles Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, on the other.
-Whin', France, town in the Savoie department near Lake Bourget; 848 feet above sea-level; 18 miles by rail north of Marseilles. It is a fashionable watering place visited annually by thousands for the hot sulphurous springs, used internally and for bathing ever since the establishment there in Roman days of the (Aquae Gratianm — the Baths of Gratian.) Resident pop. 5,000.