Lille

Lille grew beside the Deûle in the Romance-speaking part of Flanders. Its name recalls an island, and by the twelfth century its cloth fair was drawing merchants to a busy commercial town. The counts of Flanders endowed Lille with institutions that reflected its growing importance: Countess Jeanne granted a charter in 1235 and founded the Countess's Hospital the following year. Cloth manufacture and trade continued to shape the city through the centuries that followed.

Lille shared the fortunes of the Burgundian and Habsburg Low Countries, passing from the dukes of Burgundy to the Habsburg dynasty after the death of Charles the Bold. In 1667 Louis XIV captured it during the War of Devolution, and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle confirmed its cession to France. Vauban designed a great citadel to secure the new French possession, making Lille an important stronghold on the northern frontier. The city was besieged again in 1708 during the War of the Spanish Succession, when an allied army took it after a prolonged defence. Returned to France at the peace, Lille remained a fortified and commercially active city. Its defence against an Austrian siege in 1792 became a celebrated episode of the French Revolutionary Wars.