1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Trévoux

TRÉVOUX, a town of eastern France, chief town of an arrondissement in the department of Ain, 16 m. N. of Lyons on the Paris-Lyons railway. Pop. (1906), 1934. The town is situated on the slope of the left bank of the Saône, which is here crossed by a suspension bridge and is dominated by two towers, remains of a feudal castle of the 12th century. The fortifications date from the 14th century, and the church from the same period. The law-court is a building of the 17th century, and was once the seat of the parlement of Dombes. Trévoux has a sub-prefecture and a tribunal of first instance. Gold and silver wire-drawing, introduced into the town by Jews in the 14th century, and the manufacture of apparatus for wire-drawing, are its chief industries.

Trévoux (Trevos) was hardly known before the 11th century, after which it was included in the domain of the lords of Thoire-Villars, from whom it acquired its freedom. It was bought by the Bourbons in 1402, became the capital of the Dombes, and had its own mint. In 1603 a well-known printing works was established there, from which in the 18th century the Journal de Trévouse and a universal dictionary known as the Dictionnaire de Trévoux were issued by the Jesuits.