Mirecourt is the administrative capital of a canton positioned in the Xantois district at the heart of the Vosges plain, at the confluence of the River Madon with the Arol Valley.

Mirecourt's tradition of luthierie seems to date back to the end of the sixteenth century and the travels of the Dukes of Lorraine and their retinues to Italy.

This is frequently a family business which can grow into a dynastic one: numbered among Mirecourt's Lutherie dynasties have been the Derazey, Mennégand, Aldric, Lupot, Langonet, Gand, Bernard, Jacquot, Nicolas, Mougenot, Charotte, Apparut, Hilaire, Buthod, Collin, Laberte, Magnié, Peccate, Bazin, Ouchard and Vuillaume families including, most famously, Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume 1798 - 1875.

[7] At the end of the 19th century, H. R. Haweis wrote "Mirecourt now stands out as perhaps the greatest and most excellent emporium of modern violin manufacture," and "the names of Maucotel, Medard, Mennegand, Silvestre, and Derazay, and above all Vuillaume, must always shed an imperishable lustre upon the little town in the Vosges mountains.

Notably, Jean-Jacques Pages has produced outstanding instruments by copying famous eighteenth century models by the likes of Stradivarius and Amati.

Peter Fourier, the priest at nearby Mattaincourt, who would subsequently become a saint in recognition of his energetic Counter-Reformation work resisting the Protestant currents from east of the River Rhine, established the Convent of Notre-Dame (Our Lady) and there encouraged instruction in lace making both at the school which was operated by the Sisters and at the orphanage.

The Vosges psychiatric hospital (le centre hospitalier psychiatrique/CHS) remains the largest employer in the commune of Mirecourt, with over 1,000 salaried staff on the payroll.

This is the text of a donation made by a man called Urson who transferred his domain of Mirecourt (two farmsteads and environs) to the Abbey of Bouxières-aux-Dames.

A European focus of economic and commercial energy during the sixteenth century was Lombardy from where the Dukes of Lorraine introduced to Mirecourt the manufacture of string instruments, a tradition which continues to flourish.

In this way the long struggle to control the territories between France and the Rhine was settled in a manner which no doubt would have pleased Le Grand Monarque.