RHEIMS, ranz, Fr. rails (Reims), France, in the department of Marne, on the Vesle, 100 miles northeast of Paris. Its industries are considerable, embracing, besides champagne. the manufacture of textiles, dyeworks, breweries, distilleries, etc. It is also an important market for raw wool, and its woolen goods, mixed fabrics in silk and wool, merinos, etc., are i known in commerce as articles de Rein's. The old ramparts have been transformed into boulevards, but a few ancient gateways remain, the most noteworthy of which is the Porte de Paris. Rheims was a well-built town and pic turesque from the material employed in building and from the prevalence of the older style of architecture. The abbey of Saint Remy was one of the town's principal features; it had become a hospital before the late war. Rheims is a very ancient city. It occupies the site of Durocortorum, mentioned by Julius after as capital of the Remi, from which peo ple it subsequently took its present name. There are extensive Gallo-Roman remains on the Mon tage de Rheims to the south. Christianity may have found entrance into Rheims at an earlier period, but not till the middle of the 4th century did Rheims become a bishop's see. It became a place of importance under Frank rule and was early imbued with a religious char acter as the scene of the baptism of Clovis and his officers in 4% and to the many solemn and historical rites celebrated in its great cathedral. It became an archbishopric in the 8th century and after 1179, the year of the coronation there of Philip Augustus, it became the place for the coronation of the kings of France, Charles X being the last monarch solemnly crowned there. The only sovereigns, in the long series, 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 sacred oil ampoule was destroyed, in detestation of royalty; and in 1830 the ceremony of the coronation at Rheims was abolished. The most remarkable building is the great cathedral, one of the noblest specimens of Gothic art in all the world. It was built in the first half of the 13th century; is 466 feet long -by 99 feet in breadth, with a transept of .160. feet, and a height of 144 feet. Its grail:idea' features were the west facade, which was unrivaled, and the Angel toiler, which rose 59 feet above the lofty roof. The baptismal fonts were exquisite and the organ was one of the finest in France. A wealth of tapestry, sculpture and paintings beautified this magnificent structure and in numerable statues of artistic grace adorned the exterior. It is • now necessary to write of its glory in the past tense for the Germans by aerial attack and long range artillery fire dam aged this , glorious edifice beyond repair dur ing the four years in which they were in sight of its towers yet never able after the first fierce onslaught to come within the city. The cathedral is now nothing but a magnificent ruin. The city of Rheims was also laid in ruins by shot and shell. In normal times Rheims had a population of 118,000. See WAR IN EUROPE; and consult Gossett, Alphonse, 'La cathedrale de Reims' (Paris 1895) ; Justinus, J., 'Reims, la ville des sacres' (Paris 1860); Marlot, Guillaume, 'Histoire de la ville, cite, et university de Reims' (3 vols., Rheims 1843 45) ; 'Reims and its Cathedral) (in Contem porary Review, Vol CVI, New York 1914).