resistance, arranged for the flattening of all the castles in Lorraine, including Beauregard Castle which for centuries has overlooked Raon. All the passing armies and successive battles left behind them only ruin and desolation. The local economy collapsed: famine and plague ensued. Lorraine was slow to recover. The statistical records show large numbers of people simply disappeared. Even in 1710, a census undertaken for Raon counted only 194 inhabitants. The French revolution and its aftermath 1789-1800 For the most part. the violent and destructive manifestations of the French Revolution and the battles of the ensuing Napoleonic Wars occurred far from Lorraine, though the district suffered its share of economic disruption and the mobilisation of fighting age men. The administrative reforms that occurred across France put and end once and for all to the church-state partnership that had controlled the country for so long under the ancien regime, and left the civil state in control. The Franco-Prussian war After the French imperial army of Napoleon III was defeated at Sedan on 2 September 1870, and faced with the advance of enemy troops further south in the Vosges region, resistance mobilised rapidly, as disparate companies of Gardes Mobiles and of irregular guerilla fighters sprang to arms. Several fighters were killed at a battle occurring in the Plaine Valley at a small settlement called Lajus on 20 September 1870, and the region experienced various skirmishes, small scale battles and other incidents including the taking and shooting of civilian hostages during and beyond the closing months of 1870. The most important battle took place on 6 October 1870 in the La Salle - Nompatelize sector (after which the battle would be named), at a gap in the mountains on the route towards Épinal. The battle was won by the Baden Brigade commanded by General Degenfeld. After the Peace signed at Frankfurt on 10 May 1871, Raon was garrisoned by a battalion of the 9th Pomeranian Regiment who were initially billeted on the citizens, and subsequently installed in a barracks that was completed by the end of December 1871. On 14 November 1872 the Pomeranians were replaced by the 2nd battalion of Prince Albrecht's 73rd regiment of Hanoverian Fusiliers. They administered Raon-l'Étape in collaboration with the civilian authorities without major incident. Nevertheless, the town was obliged to pay financial contributions / reparations totally 33,840 francs. On 30 July 1873 the occupation ended and the German