Sedan

Sedan, a town of France, in department of Ardennes, on the Maas, 164 m. NE. of Paris; once a strong fortress, but dismantled in 1875, where in 1870 Napoleon III. and 86,000 men under Marshal Macmahon surrendered to the Germans; noted for its cloth manufactories. Previous to the Edict of Nantes was a celebrated centre of Huguenot industry and theological learning.

Population (circa 1900) given as 20,000.

Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)