Vitry-le-Françoisויטרי

Champagne, France

Vitry-le-François is a town on the Marne in northeastern France. It was built in 1545 at the order of King Francis I, whose name it bears, to replace the older town of Vitry-en-Perthois, which imperial forces destroyed in 1544. The medieval Vitry was the home of Rabbi Simhah ben Samuel, a pupil of Rashi who died in 1105; his Machzor Vitry collects rules of religious practice together with responsa of Rashi and other authorities. The mathematician Abraham de Moivre was born in Vitry-le-François in 1667 to Protestant parents and later moved to England to escape the persecution of Huguenots.

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