for Lorraine, and as a principal administrative centre, Neufchâteau had been badly hit by the fighting, being invaded and occupied by a Burgundian garrison in 1436 and again in 1476. After the fall of Burgundy, French influence over Lorraine turned into control. Richelieu saw to the destruction of the town walls at Neufchâteau, which became formally French along with the rest of Lorraine in 1766 with the death of Duke Stanislas. Three decades later, with the new administrative structure introduced across France in the aftermath of the revolution, the town found itself the capital of the Vosges arrondissement. Such was its importance that at the height of the revolutionary fervour it lost its name, mutating from Neufchâteau to Mouzon-Meuse. The town regained its former name as the political temperature cooled, but during the ensuing two centuries it found itself occupied by foreign troops during the Napoleonic Wars, during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and more recently during the Second World War. During the final decades of the nineteenth century and the early ones of the twentieth, Neufchâteau was home to an equestrian Republican Guard (France) brigade. On 19 June 1940 around 100 French soldiers, most of them members of the Twelfth Regiment of Senegalese Fusiliers were shot by German troops in a barn near to Neufchâteau. In 1965 the commune merged with those of adjacent Noncourt and of Rouceux. More recently the town hit the headlines when it became the first French commune to renounce its water treatment contract with a large multinational organisation, and take water management back into municipal control. Heraldry Current (left) and former (right) coats of arms of Neufchâteau. Population Inhabitants are called Néocastriens. Twin towns Hamm, Germany, since 1975 formerly with the now incorporated municipality Herringen since 1967 Miranda do Corvo, Portugal, since 1997 Smigiel, Poland, since 2001 Neufchâteau was part of the 1998 summit of worldwide cities named "New Castle" with: Neuburg an der Donau, Germany Neuchâtel, Switzerland Neufchâteau, Vosges, France New Castle, Delaware, USA New Castle, Indiana, USA New Castle, Pennsylvania, USA Newcastle-under-Lyme, England Newcastle upon Tyne, England Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Shinshiro, Japan See also Communes of the Vosges department References External links Communes of Vosges (department) Subprefectures in France Duchy of Lorraine