to the frequency with which the town was flooded before the rivers were embanked. Don John of Austria made Namur his headquarters during the greater part of his stay in the Netherlands, and died here in 1578. As a fortress Namur did not attain the first rank until after its capture by Louis XIV. in 1692, when Vauban endeavoured to make it impregnable; but it was retaken by William III. in 1695. The French recaptured it in 1702 and retained possession for ten years. In 1815 Marshal Grouchy on his retreat into France fought an action here with the Prussians under General Pirch. In 1888, under the new scheme of Belgian defence, the citadel and its detached works were abandoned, and in their place nine outlying forts were constructed at a distance of from 3 to 5 m. round the town. All these forts are placed on elevated points. They are in their order, beginning on the left bank of the Meuse and ending on the right bank of the same river: (1) St Heribert, (2) Malonne, (3) Suarlée, (4) Emines, (5) Cognelée, (6) Gelbressée, (7) Maizeret, (8) Andoy and (9) Dave. The whole position is correctly described as the “téte de pont” of Namur, and in addition to its strong bomb-proof forts it possesses great natural advantages for the defence of the intervals.
NANA FARNAVIS (1741–1800), the great Mahratta minister
at Poona at the end of the 18th century. His real name was
Balaji Janardhan Bhanu; but, like many other Mahrattas, he
was always known by a kind of nickname. Nana properly means
a maternal grandfather; Farnavis is the official title of the
finance minister, derived from fard＝an account and navis＝a
writer. He was born at Satara on the 4th of May 1741, and
was the son of a Chitpavan Brahman, of the same class as the
Peshwa, who held the hereditary office of Farnavis. He escaped
from the fatal battle of Panipat in 1761; and from about 1774
was the leading personage in directing the affairs of the Mahratta
confederacy, though never a soldier. This was the period when
Peshwas rapidly succeeded one another, and there was more
than one disputed succession. It was the policy of Nana Farnavis
to hold together the confederacy against both internal dissensions
and the growing power of the British. He died at Poona on
the 13th of March 1800, just before the Peshwa placed himself
in the hands of the British and thus broke up the Mahratta
confederacy. In an extant letter to the Peshwa, the Marquess
Wellesley thus describes him: “The able minister of your state,
whose upright principles and honourable views and whose zeal
for the welfare and prosperity both of the dominions of his own
immediate superiors and of other powers were so justly celebrated.”
See Captain A. Macdonald, Memoir of Nana Furnuwees (Bombay, 1851).
NANAIMO, a city of British Columbia, on the east coast of Vancouver Island. Pop. (1906) about 6500. It is connected with Victoria by the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway, and has a daily steamer service to Vancouver, as well as to Comox, Sydney and other points on the coast. It is favourably situated for growing fruit, and mixed farming is carried on to a considerable extent. There is a large export trade in coal from the neighbouring mines, which is sent chiefly to San Francisco.
NANA SAHIB, the common designation of Dandu Panth, an
adopted son of, the ex-peshwa of the Mahrattas, Baji Rao,
who took a leading part in the great Indian Mutiny, and was
proclaimed peshwa by the mutineers. Nana Sahib had a grievance
against the British government because they refused to
continue to him the pension of eight lakhs of rupees (£80,000)
which was promised to Baji Rao by Sir John Malcolm on his
surrender in 1818. This pension, however, was only intended
to be a life grant to Baji Rao himself. For this refusal the Nana
bore the British a lifelong grudge, which he washed out in the
blood of women and children in the massacres at Cawnpore.
In 1859, when the remnants of the rebels disappeared into
Nepal, the Nana was among the fugitives. His death was reported
some time afterwards, but his real fate remains obscure.
NANCY, a town of north-eastern France, the capital formerly of the province of Lorraine, and now of the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, 219 m. E. of Paris on the railway to Strassburg. Pop. (1906), town, 98,302; commune (including troops), 110, 570. Nancy is situated on the left bank of the Meurthe 6 m. above its junction with the Moselle and on the Marne-Rhine canal. The railway from Paris to Strassburg skirts the city on the south-west side; other railways—to Metz, to Épinal
by Mirecourt, to Château Salinas—join the main line near Nancy,
and make it an important junction. The town consists of two
portions—the Ville-Vieille in the north-west between the Cours
Léopold and the Pépinière gardens, with narrow and winding
streets, and the Ville-Neuve in the south-east with wide straight
streets, allowing views of the hills around the city. Between the
two lies the Place Stanislas, a square worthy of a capital city:
in the centre stands the statue of Stanislas Leczinski, ruler of
Lorraine, and on all sides rise imposing buildings in the 18th-century
style—the town hall, episcopal palace, theatre, &c.
A fine triumphal arch erected by Stanislas in honour of Louis XV.
leads from the Place Stanislas to the Place Carrière, which forms
a beautiful tree-planted promenade, containing at its further end
the government palace (1760) now the residence of the general
commanding the XX. army corps, and adjoins the so-called
Pépinière (nursery) established by Stanislas. Other open spaces
in the city are the Place d’Alliance (formed by Stanislas, with
a fountain in memory of the alliance between Louis XV.
and Maria Theresa in 1756), the Place de l’Académie,
the Place St Epvre with a statue of Duke René II., the
Place Dombasle and the Place de Thiers, the two latter
embellished with the statues of Mathieu Dombasle, the agriculturist,
and Adolphe Thiers. The cathedral in the Ville-Neuve,
built in the 18th century, has a wide façade flanked by
two dome-surmounted towers, and a somewhat frigid and sombre
interior. Of particular interest is the church of the Cordeliers, in
the old town, built by René II. about 1482 to commemorate his
victory over Charles the Bold. Pillaged during the Revolution
period, but restored to religious uses in 1825, it contains the
tombs of Antony of Vaudémont and his wife Marie d’Harcourt,
Philippe of Gueldres, second wife of René II., Henry III., count
of Vaudémont, and Isabella of Lorraine his wife, René II. (a
curious monument raised by his widow in 1515) and Cardinal
de Vaudémont (d. 1587). Here also is a chapel built at the
beginning of the 17th century to receive the tombs of the princes
of the house of Lorraine. The church of St Epvre, rebuilt
between 1864 and 1874 on the site of an old church of the 13th,
14th and 15th centuries, has a fine spire and belfry and good
stained glass windows. Bonsecours Church, at the end of the
St Pierre Faubourg, contains the mausoleums of Stanislas (by
whom it was built) and his wife Catherine, and the heart of their
daughter Marie, queen of France, as well as the statue of Notre-Dame
de Bonsecours, the object of a well-known pilgrimage.
Of the old ducal palace, begun in the 15th century by Duke
Raoul and completed by René II., there remains but a single wing,
partly rebuilt after a fire in 1871. The entrance to this wing,
which contains the archaeological museum of Lorraine, is a
beautiful specimen of the late Gothic of the beginning of the
16th century. One of the greatest treasures of the collection is
the tapestry found in the tent of Charles the Bold after the
battle of Nancy. Of the old gates of Nancy the most ancient
and remarkable is the Porte de la Craffe (1463). The town hall
contains a museum of painting and sculpture, and there is a rich
municipal library. A monument to President Carnot, and
statues of Jacques Callot, the engraver, and of General Drouot,
both natives of Nancy, and of Claude Gellée stand in various
parts of the town.
Nancy is the seat of a bishop, a prefect, a court of appeal and a court of assizes, headquarters of the XX. army corps, and centre of an académie (educational division) with a university comprising faculties of law, medicine, science and letters, and a higher school of pharmacy. There are also tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, lycées and training colleges for both sexes, a higher ecclesiastical seminary, a school of agriculture, the national school of forestry, a higher school of commerce, a technical school (école professionnelle), a school of arts and crafts (école préparatoire des arts et métiers), a chamber
