Bayonne
[key], town, Pyrénées-Atlantiques dept., SW France, in
Gascony, on the Adour River near its entrance into the Bay of Biscay.
Despite a shifting sandbar at the mouth of the Adour, it is a seaport,
exporting sulfur, oil, and natural gas. The town also has metallurgical,
chemical, aeronautical, tuna fishing, leather, and wood industries. French
and Spanish, as well as Basque, are spoken there. At Bayonne, Napoleon I
forced Charles IV and Ferdinand VII of Spain to abdicate (1808). At the end
of the Peninsular War,
Bayonne successfully resisted a British siege. Bayonne gives its name to the
bayonet, invented there in the 17th cent. The Cathedral of Bayonne (13th
cent.) is copied from those of Soissons and Reims. There is a Basque museum
and a fine arts museum, left to the city by the painter Bonnat, who was born there. Parts of
the town's Roman and medieval walls are preserved, as are Vauban's
fortifications (17th cent.).
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