L R L R interior of the church has mosaics by Domenichino and Guido Reni, a beautiful bronze font and other works of art ; but the chief object of interest is the Holy House itself, which occupies a central place. It is a plain brick build ing, measuring 28 feet by 12i, and 13^ feet in height; it has a door on the north side and a window on the west ; and a niche contains a small black image of the Virgin and Child, in Lebanon cedar, and richly adorned with jewels. St Luke is alleged to have been the sculptor; its workmanship suggests the latter half of the 15th century. Around the Santa Casa is a lofty marble screen, designed by Bramante, and executed under Popes Leo X., Clement VII., and Paul II L, by Andrea Sansovino, Girolamo Lombardo, Bandinelli, Guglielmo della Porta, and others. The four sides represent the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Arrival of the Santa Casa at Loreto, and the Nativity of the Virgin respectively. The treasury of the church contains a large variety of rich and curious votive offerings. The legend of the Holy House, by which Loreto became what has been not inappropriately called the Christian Mecca, seems to have sprung up, how is not exactly known, at the close of the crusad ing period. It is briefly referred to in the Italia Illustrata of Flavius JHondus, secretary to Popes Eugenius IV., Nicholas V.,Calixtus III., and Pius II. (ob. 1464) ; it is to be read in all its fulness in the " Redemptoris munili Matris Ecclesiae Lauretana historia," by a certain Teremannus, contained in the Opera Omnia (1576) of Bap- tista Mantuanus. According to this narrative the house at Nazareth in which Mary had been born and brought up, had received the annunciation, and had lived during the childhood of Jesus and after His ascension, was converted into a church by the apostles, and worship continued to be held in it until the fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Threatened with destruction by the Turks, it was carried by angels through the air and deposited (1291) in the first instance on a hill at Tersato in Dalmatia (some miles inland from Zengg), where an appearance of the Virgin and numerous miraculous cures attested its sacredness, which was confirmed by investigations made at Nazareth by messengers from the governor of Dalmatia. In 1294 the angels carried it across the Adriatic to a wood near Recariati ; from this wood (lauretum), or from the name of its proprietrix (Laureta), the chapel derived the name which it still retains ("sacellum gloriosra Virginis in Latvreto "). From this spot it was afterwards (1295) removed to the present hill, one other slight adjustment being required to fix it in its actual site. Bulls in favour of the shrine at Loreto were issued by Sixtus IV. in 1491 and by Julius II. in 1507, the last alluding to the translation of the house with some caution ("ut pie creditur et fama est "). The recognition of the sanctuary by subsequent pontiffs has already been alluded to. In the end of the 17th century Innocent XII. appointed a missa cum ofncio proprio" for the feast of the Translation of the Holy House, and the Festum Translationis Alma? Domus Lauretanse B. M. V. is still enjoined in the Spanish Breviary as a " duplex majus " (December 10). In the sixth lesson it is stated that " the house in which the Virgin was born, having been consecrated to the divine mysteries, was by the ministry of angels removed from the power of the infidels first to Dalmatia and afterwards to the Lauretan field during the pontificate of Celestine V. That it is the identical house in which the Word was made flesh and dwelt among men is attested by papal docu ments, by the veneration of all the world, by continued miracles, and by the grace of heavenly blessings." LORIENT, capital of an arr.ondissement in the depart ment of Morbihan, and of one of the five maritime prefectures of France, a military port and fortified place, stands on the right bank of the Scorff, at its confluence with the Blavet, in 47 45 N. lat. and 3 31 W. long., on the railway line from Nantes to Brest, at a distance of 1 1 7 miles from the former and 111 from the latter. The town, which is modern and regularly built, contains no buildings of special architectural or antiquarian interest ; it derives all its importance from its naval establishments lining the right bank of the river, which include sail-making works, cooperages, and shops for all kinds of ship carpentry. The rope-work forms a parallelogram more than 1000 feet in length by 100 broad. The foundries, fitting shops, and smiths shops are on an equally extensive scale, the forges numbering eighty-four. Of the graving docks the largest is 509 feet in length, about 98 in breadth, and more than 26 feet in depth below low-water mark. The Pree, an area of 40 acres reclaimed from the sea, contains boatbuild ing yards, steam saw-mills, and wood stores ; a floating bridge 900 feet long connects it with the shipbuilding establishments of Caudan, which occupy the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Scorff and the Blavet. Apart from its naval constructions, in which Lorient holds the first rank in France, it has an important place in the manufacture of marine artillery. Private industry is also engaged in engine making. The trade in fresh fish and sardines within the arrondissement reaches an annual value of 35 millions of francs. South from the town, also on the Scorff, is the harbour, which comprises a dry dock and a wet dock, measuring about 1650 feet by 200. The road stead, formed by the estuary of the Blavet, is accessible to vessels of the largest size ; the entrance, 3 or 4 miles south from Lorient, which is defended by numerous forts, is marked on the east by the peninsula of Gavre (an artillery practising ground) and the fortified town of Port Louis ; on the west are the fort of Loqueltas, and, higher up, the battery of Kernevel. In the middle of the channel is the granite rock of St Michel, occupied by a powder magazine. Opposite it, on the right bank of the Blavet, is the mouth of the river Ter, with fish and oyster breeding establishments, from which 10 millions of oysters are annually obtained. Above Lorient on the Scorff, here spanned by a suspension bridge, is Kerantrech, a pretty village surrounded by numerous country houses. The population of Lorient in 1876 was 35,165, including C360 of the military and official class. Lorient has taken the place of Port Louis as the port of the Blavet. The latter stands on the site of an ancient hamlet which was fortified during the wars of the League and handed over by Mercreur to the Spaniards. After the treaty of Vervins it was restored to France, and it received its name of Port Louis under liichelieu. Some Breton merchants trading with the Indies had established themselves first at Port Louis, but in 1628 they built their warehouses on the other bank. The Compngnie des Indes, created in 1664, took possession of these, giving them the name of Lorient. In 1745 the company, then at the acme of its prosperity, owned thirty-five ships of the largest class and many others of con siderable size. The failure of the attempt of the English under Lestock against Lorient is still commemorated by the inhabitants by an annual procession on the first Sunday of October. The decadence of the company dates from 1753. In 1782 the town was acquired by purchase by Louis XVI., on the bankruptcy of its former owners, the Rohan-Guemene family. LORRAINE (LOTHARINGIA, LOTHRINGEN) is geogra phically the extensive Austrasian portion of the realm allotted by the partition treaty of Verdun in August 843 to the emperor Lothair I., and inherited by his second son, King Lothair II., 855-869, from whose days the name Regnum Lotharii first arose. This border-land between the realms of the Eastern and Western Franks in its original extent took in most of the Frisian lowlands between the mouths of the Rhine and the Ems, and a strip of the right shore of the Rhine to within a few miles of Bonn. In the neighbourhood of Bingen it receded from the left shore of the river so as to exclude the dioceses of Worms and Spires, but to admit a certain connexion with Alsace. Towards the west it included nearly the whole ter ritory which is watered by the rivers Moselle and Meuse, and spread over the dioceses of Cologne, Treves, Metz, Toul, Verdun, Lie"ge, and Cambrai. Hence this artificial realm embraced, broadly speaking, almost all modern Holland and Belgium (with the exception of Flanders), part of the Prussian Rhine provinces, and what is still called Lorraine, partly French and partly German, divided, however, from Alsace and the Palatinate by the natural frontier line of the Vosgcs and the Haardt mountains. Its inhabitants were soon called Illotharii, Lotharienses, LotJiaringi. Lo- tharingia, as the designation of the country, hardly appears before the middle of the 10th century.
Up to this time Lorraine had belonged alternately to