Vitre

Vitre is a commune within the Ille-et-Vilaine department in Brittany in northwestern France. Vitre, a sub-prefecture until 1926, is the seat of a canton of 17,798 inhabitants 2015. It lies on the edge of Brittany, close to Normandy, Maine, and Anjou. The metropolis has been exact a ville d'artwork et d'histoire, a town of artistic and historical importance, by the Ministry of Culture in popularity of its wealthy cultural inheritance. Vitre is the 37th French town with the maximum historic homes and has 14% of the ancient monuments of the department.

The excellent fortune to see a Gothic town entire, whole, homogeneous, some of which nonetheless stay, Nuremberg in Bavaria and Vittoria in Spain, can effectively shape an concept; or even smaller specimens, furnished that they are properly preserved, Vitre in Brittany, Nordhausen in Prussia." Victor Hugo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Book third, Chapter 2, A bird's eye view of Paris, 1831