Théophraste Renaudot (d. 1653), founder of the Gazette de France, was born at Loudun, where there is a statue of him. The manufacture of lace and upholstery trimming and of farm implements is carried on, and there is a considerable trade in agricultural products, wine, &c. Loudun (Laudunum in ancient times) was a town of importance during the religious wars and gave its name in 1616 to a treaty favourable to the Protestants.
LOUGHBOROUGH, a market town and municipal borough in the Loughborough (Mid) parliamentary division of Leicestershire, England, near the river Soar and on the Loughborough canal. Pop. (1901) 21,508. It is 110 m. N.N.W. of London by the Midland railway, and is served by the Great Central and a branch of the London and North-Western railways. The neighbourhood is a rich agricultural district, and to the S.W. lies the hilly tract known as Charnwood Forest. The church of All Saints stands on rising ground, and is a conspicuous object for many miles round; it is of Decorated work, and the tower is Perpendicular. The other churches are modern. Public buildings include the town hall and exchange, town offices, county hall and free library. The grammar school, founded in 1495 under the charity of Thomas Burton, occupies modern buildings in pleasant grounds. There is also a girls’ grammar school partly dependent on the same foundation. The principal industry is hosiery making; there are also engineering, iron and dye works and bell foundries. The great bell for St Paul’s cathedral, London, was cast here in 1881. Loughborough was incorporated in 1888. Area, 3045 acres.
The manor of Loughborough (Lucteburne, Lucteburg, Lughteburgh) was granted by William the Conqueror to Hugh Lupus, from whom it passed to the Despensers. In 1226–1227 when it belonged to Hugh Despenser he obtained various privileges for himself and his men and tenants there, among which were quittance from suits at the county and hundred courts, of sheriffs’ aids and of view of frankpledge, and also a market every Thursday and a fair on the vigil, day and morrow of St Peter ad vincula. The market rights were purchased by the town in 1880 from the trustees of Thomas Cradock, late lord of the manor. Edward II. visited the manor several times when it belonged to his favourite, Hugh Despenser the elder. Among the subsequent lords were Henry de Beaumont and Alice his wife, Sir Edward Hastings, created Baron Hastings of Loughborough in 1558, Colonel Henry Hastings, created baron in 1645, and the earls of Huntingdon. Alexander Wedderburn was created Baron Loughborough in 1780 when he became chief justice of the common pleas. During the 19th century most of the manorial rights were purchased by the local board. Loughborough was at first governed by a bailiff, afterwards by a local board, and was finally incorporated in 1888 under a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. It has never been represented in parliament. Lace-making was formerly the chief industry, but machines for making lace set up in the town by John Heathcote were destroyed by the Luddites in 1816, and the manufacture lost its importance. Bell-founding was introduced in 1840. John Cleveland, the Royalist poet, was born at Loughborough in 1613, John Howe the painter in 1630 and Richard Pulteney the botanist in 1730.
See Victoria County History, Leicestershire; W. G. D. Fletcher, Chapters in the History of Loughborough (1883); Sir Thomas Pochin, “Historical Description of Loughborough” (1770) (vol. viii. of Bibliotheca topographica Britannica).
LOUGHREA, a market town of Co. Galway, Ireland, pleasantly situated on the N. shore of Lough Rea, 116 m. W. from Dublin by a branch from Attymon Junction on the Midland Great Western railway. Pop. (1901), 2815. There are slight remains of an Early English Carmelite friary dating c. 1300, which escaped the Dissolution. Loughrea is the seat of the Roman Catholic bishop of Clonfert, and has a cathedral built in 1900–1905. A part of the castle of Richard de Burgh, the founder of the friary, still survives, and there are traces of the town fortifications. In the neighbourhood are a cromlech and two ruined towers, and crannogs, or ancient stockaded islands, have been discovered in the lough. Apart from the surroundings of the lough, the neighbouring country is peculiarly desolate.
LOUGHTON, an urban district in the Epping parliamentary division of Essex, England, 1112 m. N.N.E. of Liverpool Street station, London, by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901), 4730. This is one of the villages which has become the centre of a residential district, and is frequented by holiday-makers from London, owing to its proximity to the pleasant woodland scenery of Epping Forest. It lies on the eastern outskirts of the Forest, near the river Roding. There are several modern churches. The lordship of the manor was granted to Waltham Abbey. In the vicinity are large earthworks, probably of British origin, known as Loughton Camp.
LOUHANS, a town of east-central France in the old province of Franche-Comté, now capital of an arrondissement in the department of Saône-et-Loire, 34 m. N.N.E. of Mâcon by road. Pop. (1906), 3216. Its church has a fine tower of the 15th century, of which the balustrade is carved so as to form the first words of the Ave Maria. There are also a hospital of the 17th century with a collection of ancient earthenware, a town-hall of the 18th century and remains of ramparts of the 16th and 17th century. The town is the central market of the agricultural plain of Bresse; chickens form the chief article of commerce. There is also a large felt-hat manufactory.
LOUIS, or Lewis (from the Frankish Chlodowîch, Chlodwig,
Latinized as Chlodowius, Lodhuwicus, Lodhuvicus, whence—in the Strassburg oath of 842—O. Fr. Lodhuwigs, then Chlovis, Loys
and later Louis, whence Span. Luiz and—through the Angevin kings—Hungarian Lájos; cf. Ger. Ludwig or Ludewig, from O. H. Ger. Hluduwîc, Hludwîg, Ludhuwîg, M. H. Ger. Ludewîc; Ital. Lodovico), a masculine proper name, meaning “Fame-fight”
or “Famous in fight,” from old Frankish chlud, chlod (O. H. Ger.
hlud, hlod), “fame,” and wîch (O. H. Ger. wîc., wîg, A.S. wîg) “war,” “battle” (cf. Gr. Κλυτόμαχος). The name has been
borne by numerous European sovereigns and others, of whom some are noticed below in the following order: (1) Roman emperors and Frankish and German kings, (2) kings of Bavaria, (3) kings of France, (4) kings of Hungary, (5) kings of Naples, (6) Louis of Nassau. (Louis Philippe, king of the French, is dealt with separately.)
LOUIS I. (778–840), surnamed the “Pious,” Roman emperor, third son of the emperor Charlemagne and his wife Hildegarde, was born at Chasseneuil in central France, and crowned king of Aquitaine in 781. He received a good education; but as his tastes were ecclesiastical rather than military, the government of his kingdom was mainly conducted by his counsellors. Louis, however, gained sound experience in warfare in the defence of Aquitaine, shared in campaigns against the Saxons and the Avars, and led an army to Italy in 792. In 794 or 795 he married Irmengarde, daughter of Ingram, count of Haspen. After the deaths of his two elder brothers, Louis, at his father’s command, crowned himself co-emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 11th of September 813, and was formally associated in the government of the Empire, of which he became sole ruler, in the following January. He earned the surname of “Pious” by banishing his sisters and others of immoral life from court; by attempting to reform and purify monastic life; and by showing great liberality to the church. In October 816 he was crowned emperor at Reims by Pope Stephen IV.; and at Aix in July 817, he arranged for a division of his Empire among his sons.
This was followed by a revolt of his nephew, Bernard, king of Italy; but the rising was easily suppressed, and Bernard was mutilated and killed. The emperor soon began to repent of this cruelty, and when his remorse had been accentuated by the death of his wife in 818, he pardoned the followers of Bernard and restored their estates, and in 822 did public penance at Attigny. In 819 he married Judith, daughter of Welf I., count of Bavaria, who in 823 bore him a son Charles, afterwards called the Bald. Judith made unceasing efforts to secure a kingdom for her child; and with the support of her eldest step-son Lothair, a district was carved out for Charles in 829. Discontent at this arrangement increased to the point of rebellion, which broke out the following year, provoked by Judith’s intrigues with Bernard, count of Barcelona, whom she had installed
