NANCY lies on the banks of the River Meurthe. It was spared the Prussian occupation that afflicted the rest of the region from 1870 to 1918, and its centre, largely unaffected by the undistinguished modern sprawl that blights the valley sides, remains a model of eighteenth-century Classicism. For this, it has the last of the independent dukes of Lorraine to thank, the dethroned King of Poland and father-in-law of Louis XV, Stanislas Leszczynski. During the twenty-odd years of his of... [More]