Auray (ôrāˈ) [key], town (1990 pop. 10,323), Morbihan dept., NW France, in Brittany, on the Auray River estuary. Oysters are bred, food is canned, and furniture is manufactured. Nearby the decisive battle of the War of the Breton Succession took place (1364). On the Champ des Martyrs, also near Auray, some 800 royalists, who had landed at Quiberon, were massacred (1795). North of the town is the famous Basilica of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, built in Renaissance style in the 19th cent. Pilgrimages to the shrine have occurred every July 26 since the 17th cent., when a peasant, Yves Nicolazic, claimed to have seen a vision of St. Anne.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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