Wallerfangen

Wallerfangen, known in French as Vaudrevange, was a walled town of Lorraine on the Saar. It served as a centre of the German-speaking bailliage of the duchy, and its miners extracted azurite to make a blue pigment, Wallerfanger blue, that was traded as far as Italy. Old underground workings, some inherited from Roman times, supplied the trade.

The Thirty Years' War damaged the town severely. In 1680 the French began building the new fortress of Saarlouis nearby to plans revised by Vauban, on a site chosen for its level ground beside the river. In 1687–88 Wallerfangen was largely demolished and its inhabitants compelled to move to the new town. Stone from the old settlement was used in the construction of the new fortress at Saarlouis.