Louviers

Louviers stands on the Eure, whose waters served the mills of a town renowned for its cloth. Woollen drapery and linen weaving were already established in the Middle Ages, and the town's craftspeople left their mark on the church of Notre-Dame: its stained glass included a window given by the drapers. Its fine cloth later found buyers far beyond Normandy.

In 1346, during the Hundred Years' War, English troops sacked the unwalled town. Louviers began building a circuit of walls in 1366, but war continued to disrupt its industry. A royal manufactory established in 1681 under François Le Camus helped restore the cloth trade. By the end of the eighteenth century the textile industry employed more than five thousand workers in the town.