1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clermont-en-Beauvaisis

CLERMONT-EN-BEAUVAISIS, or Clermont-de-l’Oise, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Oise, on the right bank of the Brèche, 41 m. N. of Paris on the Northern railway to Amiens. Pop. (1906) 4014. The hill on which the town is built is surmounted by a keep of the 14th century, the relic of a fortress the site of which is partly occupied by a large penitentiary for women. The church dates from the 14th to the 16th centuries. The hôtel-de-ville, built by King Charles IV., who was born at Clermont in 1294, is the oldest in the north of France. The most attractive feature of the town is the Promenade du Châtellier on the site of the old ramparts. Clermont is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance, a communal college and a large lunatic asylum. It manufactures felt and corsets, and carries on a trade in horses, cattle and grain.

The town was probably founded during the time of the Norman invasions, and was an important military post, during the middle ages. It was several times taken and retaken by the contending parties during the Hundred Years’ War, and the Wars of Religion, and in 1615 Henry II., prince of Condé, was besieged and captured there by the marshal d’Ancre.

Counts of Clermont. Clermont was at one time the seat of a countship, the lords of which were already powerful in the 11th century. Raoul de Clermont, constable of France, died at Acre in 1191, leaving a daughter who brought Clermont to her husband, Louis, count of Blois and Chartres. Theobald, count of Blois and Clermont, died in 1218 without issue, and King Philip Augustus, having received the countship of Clermont from the collateral heirs of this lord, gave it to his son Philip Hurepel, whose daughter Jeanne, and his widow, Mahaut, countess of Dammartin, next held the countship. It was united by Saint Louis to the crown, and afterwards given by him (1269) to his son Robert, from whom sprang the house of Bourbon. In 1524 the countship of Clermont was confiscated from the constable de Bourbon, and later (1540) given to the duke of Orleans, to Catherine de’ Medici (1562), to Eric, duke of Brunswick (1569), from whom it passed to his brother-in-law Charles of Lorraine (1596), and finally to Henry II., prince of Condé (1611). In 1641 it was again confiscated from Louis de Bourbon, count of Soissons, then in 1696 sold to Louis Thomas Amadeus of Savoy, count of Soissons, in 1702 to Françoise de Brancas, princesse d’Harcourt, and in 1719 to Louis-Henry, prince of Condé. From a branch of the old lords of Clermont were descended the lords of Nesle and Chantilly.