Editing Mayenne (section)

==History==
Like 82 other departments, Mayenne was created on 4 March 1790 during the early stages of the [[French Revolution]] by order of the [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|National Constituent Assembly]]. The new departments were to be uniformly administered and approximately equal to one another in size and population. The former province of Maine was partitioned into two, Upper Maine, centred on [[Le Mans]], became the new department of Sarthe, and Lower Maine, centred on Laval became the new department of Mayenne. [[Duchy of Anjou|Anjou]], to the south, being too big to form a single department, was reduced in size and became Maine-et-Loire. In this partition, Sarthe received the region of [[La Flèche]], and Mayenne received [[Château-Gontier]] and [[Craon, Mayenne|Craon]]. [[Flax]] was a feature of the Mayenne economy, and the southern limit for the cultivation of flax was used to determine the new border between Mayenne and Maine-et-Loire.

The American first army's 90th Infantry Division were tasked with capturing the town in 1944.<ref>{{cite book |author=Schama, Simon |title=Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution |location=New York |publisher=Knopf |year=1989}}</ref>