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 upon pile, or double pile), and by brocading with plain silk, with uncut pile or with a ground of gold tissue, &c. The earliest sources of European artistic velvets were Lucca, Genoa, Florence and Venice, and Genoa continues to send out rich, velvet textures. Somewhat later the art was taken up by Flemish weavers, and in the 16th century Bruges attained a reputation for velvets not inferior to that of the great Italian cities.

VELVETEEN, a cotton cloth. made in imitation of velvet. The term is sometimes applied to a mixture of silk and cotton. Some velveteens are a kind of fustian, having a rib of velvet pile alternating with a plain depression. The velveteen trade varies a good deal with the fashions that control the production of velvet. 'Velveteens are commonly woven in sheeting looms, and manufacturers are able to alternate the two kinds of goods according to the demand.

VENAPRUM, an ancient town of Campania, Italy, close to the boundaries of both Latium adjectum and Samnium. Its site is occupied by the modern Venafro, a village with 4716 inhabitants (1901), on the railway from Isernia to Caianello, 15 m. S.W. of the former, 658 ft. above sea-level. Ancient authors tell us but little about it, except that it was one of those towns governed by a prefect sent yearly from Rome, and that in the Social War it was taken by the allies by treachery. Augustus founded a colony there and provided for the construction of an aqueduct (cf. the long decree relating to it in Carp. Inscr. Lat. x. No. 4842). It seems to have been a place of some importance. Its olive oil was the best in Italy, and Cato mentions its brick works and iron manufactures. The original line of the Via Latina probably ran through Venafrum, making a détour, which the later road seems to have avoided (cf. ). Rufrae was probably dependent on it. Roads also ran from Venafrum to Aesernia and to Telesia by way of Allifae. Of ancient remains hardly anything is left—some traces of an amphitheatre and fragments of polygonal walls only.

VENDACE, the name of a freshwater fish of the genus Coregonus, of which two other species are indigenous in the fresh waters of the British Islands, the gwyniad and the pollan. The vendace (C. vendesius) is restricted to some lochs in Dumfriesshire, Scotland; it is, however, very similar to a species (C. albula) which inhabits some of the large and deep lakes of northern Europe. From its general resemblance to a dace the French name of the latter, vandoise, was transferred to it at the period when French was the language of the court and aristocracy of Scotland. So great is the local celebrity of the fish that a story has been invented ascribing to Mary Queen of Scots the merit of having introduced it into the Lochmaben lochs. It is considered a great delicacy, and on favourable days when the shoals rise to the surface, near the edges of the loch, great numbers may be taken. It spawns in November. In length it scarcely exceeds 8 in.

VENDÉE, a maritime department of western France, formed in 1790 out of Bas-Poitou, and taking its name from an unimportant tributary of the Sèvre Niortaise. It is bounded by Loire-Inferieure and Maine-et-Loire on the N., by Deux-Sèvres on the E., by Charente-Inferieure on the S. and by the Atlantic Ocean on the W. for 93 m. Pop. (1906) 442,777. Area, 2708 sq. m. The islands of Yeu (area, 8 sq. m.) and (q.v.) are included. The Sèvre Nantaise on the N.E. and the Sèvre Niortaise on the S., besides other streams of minor importance, form natural boundaries. The department falls into three divisions—woodland (Bocage), plain (Côte) and marsh (Marais).

VENDÉE, WARS OF THE, a counter-revolutionary insurrection which took place during the (q.v.), not only in Vendée proper but also in Lower Poitou, Anjou, Lower Maine and Brittany. The district was mainly inhabited by peasants; it contained few important towns, and the bourgeois were but a feeble minority. The ideas of the Revolution were slow in penetrating to this ignorant peasant population, which had always been less civilized than the majority of Frenchmen, and in 1789 the events which roused enthusiasm throughout the rest of France left the Vendeans indifferent. Presently, too, signs of discontent appeared. The priests who had refused to submit to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy perambulated these retired districts, and stigmatized the revolutionists as heretics. In 1791 two “representatives on mission” informed the Convention of the disquieting condition of Vendee, and this news was quickly followed by the exposure of a royalist plot organized by rae marquis de la Rouerie.

The signal for a widespread rising was the introduction of conscription acts for the recruiting of the depleted armies on the eastern frontiers. In February 1793 the Convention decreed a levy on the whole of France, and on the eve of the ballot the Vendée, rather than comply with this requisition, broke out in insurrection. The Vendéan peasant refused to join the republican army, not for want of fighting qualities or ardour, but because the army of the old regime was recruited from bad characters and broken men, and the peasant, ignorant of the great change that had followed the Revolution, thought that the barrack-room was no place for a good Christian. In March 1793 the officer commanding at Cholet was killed, and republicans were massacred at Machecoul and St Florent. Giving rein to their ancient antipathy, the revolted peasantry-attacked the towns, which were liberal in ideas and republican