nahNt, a town of France, capital of the Department of Loire-Inferieure, on the Loire, 250 mi. s. w. of Paris. The situation, on an important navigable river, within 40 miles of the ocean, is highly advantageous for commerce. Among the chief public buildings are the Cathedral of Saint Pierre, the castle of the old dukes of Brittany, the Hotel de Ville, the museum of natural history, the museum of painting and the theaters. The chief industries of the town are shipbuilding, the manufacture of ships' boilers and machinery, linens, cottons, sail cloth, leather and soap, and the production of tobacco and sardines. Before the conquest of Gaul by the Romans, Nantes was a place of some note. For a long time it formed one of the most valuable possessions of the dukes of Brittany, but in 1499, when Anne of Brittany married Charles VIII, it passed with the rest of her possessions to the crown of France. The most famous event in its history was the issuing of the famed Edict of Nantes (See NANTES, EDICT OF). In 1793 it was the scene of some of the most atrocious massacres of the French Revolution. As many as six hundred people are known to have perished in one day, and thousands were killed in the town and surrounding country. Population in 1901, 132,990.